Now, I am no cynic. I quite like the fact that people take the two seconds it takes out their day to click the notification and wish me a “Happy Birthday”, but I know there are many people out there who are not big fans of how impersonal Facebook has become. Okay yes, I have slightly more ‘friends’ on Facebook than I do in real life. Actually, probably about 85% of them I would struggle to name, but that doesn’t mean I’m not chuffed when a “Happy Birthday” message rolls in. Yes, yes, I admit it, Facebook has made it extremely difficult to forget birthdays with countless notifications and even going as far as to write the message for us so we can just hit send. Where will it stop? Will Facebook start wishing people “Happy Birthday” without us knowing? Wishing “Happy Birthday” to people we haven’t met yet? Not quite. But in the meantime…
Facebook’s latest brainwave to come out of Silicon Valley was probably brought about by the rise to stardom of SnapChat.
Yes, that’s right, we can now send special “Happy Birthday” videos to each other!
The videos, which are 15 seconds long, come with special frames, and are then posted to your friends wall. There is no special photo montage reminding us of how good mates we are or a recap (however brief) of our interactions on Facebook (like we have seen with Facebook’s “friendship day”). The videos are the same as any other video posted on a Facebook wall; up there to be watched one at a time. I am not sure who came up with this idea but I am 100% certain I’ll be sticking to the mindless SMS style birthday messages. No one needs my ugly mug snapped with that ever flattering front camera, ruining their special day.
Anyway, I’ll keep the ramblings to a minimum. Facebook now lets you send Happy Birthday videos. Update over.