Facebook's emoticon status composer now available in India

Feeling super excited or eating a pizza and want your Facebook friend list to know? The social network is rolling out new status composers to India finally

Nishtha Kanal|May 30, 2013, 15:30:46 IST

Feeling super excited or eating a pizza and want your Facebook friends to know? The social network is rolling out new status composers to India finally, where you can insert smileys and icons to your status message, enunciating what you’re currently up to.

The new status composer has a new button that will let you choose between activities you may be undertaking. You can take your pick between feeling, watching, reading, listening to, drinking and eating. Say, if you want your friends to know that you’re listening to Porcupine Tree, then you need to click on “Listening” and search for the artiste.

Of course, you will be able to update your status with your comments too. Once you’re done, you will find a tiny icon of the headphones next to your status, with the artiste tagged onto it.

Rolling out now

This feature was first tested back in January and started to roll out in April. It has taken more than a month to make it to India from when it first started to roll out, but this will be worth it if you use Facebook often.

What is more interesting is that Facebook is linking pages to these status updates, promoting them and prompting users to like these. Users are more likely to hit on the "Like" button if a friend has put up a page on his status with the “watching”, “listening to” rather than a sponsored story. Essentially, as far as promoting pages go, this new status composer will act like old wine in a brand new bottle.

More from News Analysis

Back in January, Facebook added that it isn’t using the data put up on these emoticon-rich status messages for advertising. At least, it isn’t yet. This could well turn out to be a goldmine for Facebook, as advertisers would now be able to know users' likes and dislikes on a much deeper level. Say, if you’re at a restaurant and eating a particular dish, then you can check-in to the place with your emoticon laden status, thereby allowing advertisers to view this information and target you for ads regarding places that offer the cuisine.

If you still haven’t received the smiley button on your status composer, don’t fret. It looks like Facebook is still in the process of rolling it out in India and you should be getting it in a few days’ time.

By Nishtha Kanal

Intrigued by all things social, Nishtha will invariably tweet about you. When not tweeting or writing about the next viral video, you will hear her proclaiming her love to Metallica, James Hetfield, Opeth, Akerfeldt and all bands that go 'growl'. She also obsesses about ACP Pradyuman and South Park and you will always find her moving around with a book. Her focus is on all the happening stuff in the tech domain, and she won't hesitate to take a shot at some of the oddball devices that make their way to our labs.