Facebook Poke: Social Impact from a Feature with no Purpose
Has someone poked you? What a colleague? Yes, I too know that awkward silence near the coffee machine the next day.
When my friend Kit Seeborg first joined Facebook, she emailed me and text messages me asking me about what is the “poke feature” for in Facebook. I explained it was first a way for people to flirt, and even have an awkward one night stand at Brown University and now it’s a gesture, to get someone’s attention. In fact there’s 172 groups (with chapters for major cities) within Facebook entitled “Enough with the Poking let’s just have sex“, go figure. Don’t ask me how this applies to a corporate web strategy.
Facebook has an official FAQ for the Poke Feature, “A poke is a way to interact with your friends on Facebook. When we created the poke, we thought it would be cool to have a feature without any specific purpose. People interpret the poke in many different ways, and we encourage you to come up with your own meanings.”
If you ‘remove’ a poke from your profile, Facebook let’s us know what happens: “Once a poke is hidden, it’s gone forever. The memories, however, will last a lifetime. Oh, and hiding a poke allows the other person to poke you again, which is always a good thing.” Still not sure what Poke is for? You’re not alone.
Clueless? maybe it’s a generational thing, I can help, have you used my Crises Management Template: Child Relations for Social Networks (Facebook)? It’s 1st in my Child Relations Initiative programs for web strategists.
On previous blog posts, I’ve asked people to add me as their friend, and I promise to add them back, as long as they don’t poke or bite me, well, it didn’t work.
Here’s a list of the offenders that have poked me, let the public humiliation begin:
You were poked by
Giovanni Rodriguez.You were poked by
Tinu Abayomi-Paul.You were poked by
Edward Vielmetti.You were poked by
Kris Krüg.You were poked by
Cecilia Kim.You were poked by
Allan J. Cox.You were poked by
Jennifer Jones.You were poked by
Daniel Johnson Jr.You were poked by
Robert Scoble.You were poked by
Glory Wong.You were poked by
Dave McClure.You were poked by
Darold Massaro.You were poked by
Anita Wong.You were poked by
Eric At Arcscale.You were poked by
Kit Seeborg.You were poked by
Shirley O
So, how should I punish them?
(In case you can’t tell, I’m attempting to be humorous, if not satirical of the whole poking thing, all of those folks listed above are friends, and one is even my wife! )
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I’m wondering why you personally dislike “the poke”, the interaction, the wink, the nod, the wave…
Why does it upset you, isn’t it interaction and flattering?
It makes me feel dirty?
or
Fun is not allowed, Facebook is for business.
You are missing something here.
By poking someone, you put your name on their screen. This means they can interact with you on Facebook by clicking on your name instead of you having to do a search.
On mobile Facebook, recent pokes are prominently displayed; on the web based Facebook, it’s not the same list and looks like oldest first.
The mobile Facebook use case is actually the best one. Someone pokes you; you’re interested in talking to them; you click to their profile; you click on their phone number; your phone dials; you call them.
A poke temporarily makes your profile visible to someone who could not otherwise see it. In a sense you are poking a hole through the default Facebook privacy screen. The second use case is I poke you, you poke me, we read each others profiles, we friend each other (or send email if we are old, or write on each others blogs if we are not quite so old but still too old).
Q: How should you punish them?
A: You can always add SuperPoke and throw a sheep at them.
send them an impersonal email asking them to write about some irrelevant product on their blog.
Make sure to include some spelling errors.
Sadly, my attempt at sarcasm and humor has failed. That Masters Degree at Clown College was bunk.
Kwandom
What beats SuperPoke? This is like the cold war or something.
Oh dear, my attempts are futile, “Chris Hambly poked you on Facebook…”
Could be a generational thing. Going to have to read your Child Relations for Social Networks template. The only application I find myself actively using is the scrabble game app. Maybe I’m just old school, but I just don’t get these pokes and bites from zombies.
**Kwandom has nudged Jeremiah**
I don’t know about some of these other people, but Scoble’s married. Hell, he’s having a kid right now!
This whole rant, though, smacks of a misunderstanding (or at least forgetting) the purpose of Facebook: Just because a person *can* use it for work-type stuff doesn’t mean it’s *built* for it. Facebook was, is and likely always will be for college kids. It’s tough to post an event that’s not a party, and it’s tough to not get poked by random people.
How to punish the guilty? Public Humiliation - publish their names . . .
TO’B
**Jeremiah has elbowed Kwandom**
comedy aside, it is sort of odd how my perception of ‘poke’ has changed over the past year or so…
i used to think it was kind of a weird or subtly flirty feature… but now it’s kind of just like a ‘hey what up’ thing. a year ago i would have thought it strange to ‘poke’ another guy, and kind of creepy to ‘poke’ a woman without getting the other meaning.
now, i don’t think anything of bopping down a friends list and poking 5-10 people at a time, men or women. it’s strange how my awareness / comfort of the feature has changed over time.
** Dave pokes Jeremiah & winks knowingly, in a very uncomfortable way **
How about we all “hug” on Facebook instead?
btw, the last one on your list there doesn’t seem so bad
@Dave That’s what YOU think.
Jeremiah. I just poked you. LOL!!!!
My friend you have just brought this upon yourself. Don’t you all agree that Jeremiah for some reason liked being poked! If not who will add some thing like “don’t poke me” on their welcome note. If you haven’t noticed J…saying no online is similar to not liking cats. Harder you push them harder they comeback. BTW I don’t think Facebook is for business…Linkedin is. That’s why when you go there it feels like the boring corporate board room.
Remember all of us are immigrants to the digital age the citizens are the ones born after the 80’s.
So I feel the few of us who are on the ball are still physiologically under 25! (I am still 18 in those terms) Which is the reason we have such a passion for this online community. If we didn’t do you think our piers who all respected business people will bother to poke each other!!:)
Sanjay…here’s some reverse reverse psychology for you. I don’t like not being poked.
I take any poke I can get;-)But I am not one that can be used of employing discriminating tastes:)
Congrats on the move,BTW.
Well poke me…
I was clueless on the purpose of a feature without any specific purpose. I wonder if I am innately clueless or if it’s a talent developed in (biological) maturity…….
There is a blogger who is an incessant poker… but he’s located near my soon to be home office… so I figure I’ll find a way to get him back.
It’s someone I met thru Tinu & we’ve pondered how to deal with this poke-man! 
Jeremiah, I think you just opened yourself up to a whole lot more poking (I would have NEVER considered doing so, but now it’s tempting). I was just looking & I see the list of birthdays is just under the poke notifications - which is a good proximity.
PMSL sorry I got as far as comment #5 and completely forgot what I was going to say *grin* I guess I’ll just have to head over to facebook and poke you instead - getting poked by a stranger can’t be that bad surely..? I’ll be gentle..
Connie I agree with you. I don’t think even facebook has had so many people chatting about the poke
Sanjay,
That’s Jeremiah’s magic! He can turn any topic into a great conversation - even a fun one
My suggestion is that the Poke feature add the option to send a statement with the poke. I’d like to send a snappy comment - and it would give it more context. (if we need this
but we probably do!)
When I read that you didn’t want to be poked, I always took it as an invitation to be poked; almost a flirt, a coy request for interaction — in fact almost a poke. I certainly never for a moment thought you really meant it.
Jill, is it that obvious!
Now I’ve “poked” you on your blog!