Facebook makes it easier to keep up with births, weddings and engagements

13 Jul 2012

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan on their wedding day in May. Zuckerberg revealed to the world on Facebook the fact he had married

Social network Facebook has introduced a new feature that makes it easier to see when friends have important life events to announce, such as weddings, births and engagements.

Writing on his wall, Vadim Lavrusik, Journalist Programme Manager at Facebook, said: “Weddings and celebrations on Facebook: Now you’ll be able to more easily see when your friends get engaged, married or are celebrating the arrival of a new child so that you can congratulate them.”

What this effectively means is that just like birthday notifications, friends can choose to leave a message on the users’ Facebook Timeline. In fact, these life events will be displayed alongside birthday notifications.

Considering Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s recent nuptials with Priscilla Chan following Facebook’s IPO, this would have been a pretty cool way to announce that marriage. But now it seems thousands – if not millions – of people will get to update this way from today onwards.

It is among a steady flow of new features Facebook has introduced in recent days, including a redesign of its events page and the ability for groups to see who has read posts.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com