20 Things Your Most Annoying Friends Do on Facebook

1. TMI Parents

We love your babies, really we do. We do not, however, relish vivid descriptions of their every wee wee and poopee. And we especially don't look forward to 46 similar posts every single day.

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2. Marketing

Congratulations, you have a job! So does the majority of the rest of the 900 million people on Facebook.

We simply ask one favor: If you wish to market, create a marketing page. If you wish to lose all your friends, keep spamming them with P90X ads.

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3. Vaguebooking

Urban Dictionary defines "vaguebooking" as the following: "An intentionally vague Facebook status update that prompts friends to ask what's going on, or is possibly a cry for help."

See also:

• "Wondering if it's all worth it..."
• "Yep, that just happened."
• "Karma is a bitch."

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4. Unsolicited Check-Ins

I really don't think anyone cares about our third trip to Dunkin' Donuts this week. For that matter, I'd prefer if my boss didn't learn about our weeknight rendezvous at **FREE-Tuesday-Night-Jager-Shots-With-Purchase-of-PBR-Tall-Can Tavern.**

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5. The Humblebrag

"Sometimes I wish I wasn't 5'10" and stunningly gorgeous because then I could just walk in peace."

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6. Vanity

MySpace may have popularized the "selfie," but we're pretty sure Facebook is keeping it alive and well.

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7. Song Lyrics

We're not total squares. We appreciate a good tune now and again. But somehow, reading your ass-random song lyrics out of context doesn't toot our trumpet, if you know what I mean.

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8. Political Rants

Does [insert politician here] reward you for being his top ultra liberal/conservative social media mouthpiece? He should.

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9. The Twitter Sync

HT @mention, @mention FWIW, Twitter is not the same as FB. #kthanksbye.

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10. Third Person

There's a reason people on Facebook discontinued the third person status update. Because it got old. Ergo, stop doing it.

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11. The Phantom Tag

I am not in that sunset picture, but you seem to want me to be. Or you just want me to hate you.

Variation: Any post that ends with "Amirite? [Tagged name] [Tagged name] [Tagged name] [Tagged name] [Tagged name] [Tagged name] [Tagged name] [Tagged name] [Tagged name] [Tagged name]."

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12. Creepers

It's so refreshing to know that people subscribe to you for your intelligence and wit. Oh right, that and marriage proposals.

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13. Publicizing Private Moments

A) Full-blown conversations on Facebook between a couple that sees each other every day and may even be sitting next to each other on the couch, for all we know.

B) Posting publicly about private or sensitive matters pertaining to family, friends, legal matters, religious beliefs, health, violence or even feminine hygiene products (yes, we've seen it).

KITY (Keep It to Yourself).

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14. Unnecessary Name Changes

When did it become trendy to go by your middle name instead of your last name? Some of us missed the memo.

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15. Month-Long Events

Creating a month-long event? Cool. Now I have 30 days to plot my revenge.

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16. The Shared Profile

There's no reason you and your partner should maintain separate profiles — you breathe the same air, keep the same secrets and mourn the same crippled identity, right?

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17. Urban Legends / Chain Letters

"Repost this Facebook status to protect your privacy!" Sound familiar?

Fake rumors like these often start as political, marketing or social campaigns, and are designed to spread awareness through fear. But really, it's the people who blindly perpetuate these rumors who should be afraid — very afraid.

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18. The "Arm Triangle of Insecurity"

The hand-on-hip trick creates a slimming effect, also known as the "skinny arm." It's especially effective when paired with a bent knee and photographed from the side.

Only problem is it's no longer a secret of the sorority pros. Now everyone knows you're just trying to look skinny.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Greek@Duke

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19. Mundane Posts + Exercise Bragging

It's really important that every single one of your 400 Facebook friends knows that you're training for a 5K, that you stubbed your big toe during a recent jog, and that your runner's diet of chia seeds is doing wonders for your digestion.

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20. Redundant Links

Pet peeve: people who don't remove the URL once they've copy/pasted it into a status update. Result: ilooklikebarackobama.com on top of ilooklikebarackobama.com. Hurts my eyes.

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Either we’re getting old and grouchy or Facebook is becoming a lot less tolerable these days. Once we filter through pictures of baby’s first potty training and epic love poems of the newly engaged, we’re left with political diatribes and spam — and yes, all of it from our “friends.”

In a long-winded, therapeutic email thread, Mashable staffers vented about our biggest Facebook pet peeves. Once I removed the NSFW language and CAPS LOCK cyber-rants, I narrowed down the list to the 20 most annoying behaviors on Facebook.

Perhaps your friends are guilty of one or — God forbid — all of these Facebook mortal sins. Maybe even you have erred from time to time (we forgive you, but please stop). Either way, now’s your chance to contribute your own nominations for world’s worst Facebook manners. Vent away in the comments below.

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This Infographic Shows Why Google+ Is a Ghost Town

There’s a lot of conflicting data out there about Google+. A few studies over the past few months have portrayed the fledgling social network as relatively moribund, but another recent report from Experian Hitwise says visits to the network are growing substantially, hitting 34.9 million for the week ended Aug. 4 compared to 21.9 million visits for the week ended July 21 — a 59% jump in two weeks.

Whether the network is thriving or not, this research from Umpf, a UK-based social media firm, shows that activity on G+ is low compared to other social networks.

To prove the point, Umpf analyzed 100 online news stories across G+, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. The company then determined the average number of users per 100 million likely to share a story. As the infographic below shows, the gulf between G+ and Twitter in this regard is stark: Only six G+ users out of 100 million shared, compared to 197.3 out of 100 million for Twitter. The difference wasn’t as large for Facebook and LinkedIn, but G+ was still a distant fourth.

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New ‘Facebook Stories’

New ‘Facebook Stories’ Reveals Human Drama Within

Facebook took the wraps off Facebook Stories Thursday, a section designed “to celebrate the different stories that are coming out of Facebook,” according to a spokesperson’s description.

The first issue of Facebook Stories, which resides at facebook.com/FacebookStories, centers on “remembering.” A video at the top of the page tells the moving story of Mayank Sharm, who used Facebook’s “People You May Know” tool to contact old acquaintances and reconstruct his life history after being diagnosed with meningitis at age 27. A separate page serves up stories on memory from The New Yorker‘s archives, courtesy of the magazine’s librarians. Ari Shapiro, NPR’s White House correspondent, shares “one memory he’ll never forget,” and author and journalist Joshua Foer shares a list of books on memory that informed his own on the subject.

The remaining pieces, written by a mix of freelancers and Facebook employees whose job titles contain the word “editor,” tell of other interesting uses of the social network to save decaying landmarks and inspire art.

The point of it all? A Facebook spokesperson tells me that an “overwhelming outpouring of people” e-mail the company’s press account to share how they’ve used the site “to leverage connections, deliver social value to their communities and work through adversity in their own lives. We wanted to build a place where they can live and be showcased and celebrated, and also to give them some context.”

The social network launched a similar, less formal project as a Facebook application under the same name in 2010, which asked users to submit their stories to be shared with other users of the app. The application was deleted sometime in early 2011. The new Facebook stories is “a separate effort from a different team,” a spokesperson tells me.

The new Facebook Stories is almost identical in nature to Twitter Stories and Tumblr’s Storyboard, both of which detail how individuals are using those platforms through short articles, photographs and videos. Of the two, Tumblr’s is the more robust, with one or more new stories per day, whereas Twitter has published just two three-paragraph stories since mid-April.

New issues will be released each month, accompanied by an infographic related to each theme. Each story will focus on people, not brands, but “this is just the first iteration, we could see different evolutions,” Facebook says.

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Facebook Upgrades Photo Viewing, Sharing

Continuing the super-sizing of photos that began with the introduction of Timeline last year, Facebook on Monday enhanced image-viewing on the platform.

Now, when you click Photos at the top of your Timeline, you’ll be presented with larger pics that fill up the page. Presenting a page full of images will in theory make it easier to share photos. As Facebook’s blog stated on Monday, “With your Facebook photos all in one section, it’s simple to show friends your favorites. Click the star button to make important photos stand out.”

It’s no mystery why Facebook is putting so much emphasis on photos: Pinterest’s popularity has demonstrated a user preference for a more visual experience. Other sites like Quora and Chill.com have mimicked Pinterest’s design. Another major reason is the migration of users to mobile. Since photo-sharing is among the most popular activities on mobile, Facebook spent $1 billion to purchase Instagram and has rolled out its own Instagram competitor, Facebook Camera.

A Facebook rep, however, says the change only affects the Facebook desktop experience; mobile apps won’t be upgraded.

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Goodbye, Gmail Video Chat. Hello Google+ Hangouts

If you enjoy video chatting over Gmail the way you’ve been doing it since 2008, better wave your last goodbyes to your buddy list.

Starting Monday, and continuing over the next few weeks, Google is going to be replacing Gmail video chat with Google+ Hangouts. “Unlike the old video chat, which was based on peer-to-peer technology, Hangouts utilize the power of Google’s network to deliver higher reliability and enhanced quality,” reads the explanatory blog post written by the Gmail team.

“You’ll be able to chat with all the same people you did before — and, in fact, with Hangouts you’ll now be able to reach them not only when they are using Gmail, but also if they are on Google+ in the browser or on their Android or iOS devices.”

The search giant is eager to promote the use of its social network, and has in the past attempted to blur the lines between users of Gmail, Google Maps and other Google services. If you’re logged into any of them, the company says, you’re logged into Google+.

Nefarious network-boosting purposes aside, Google Hangouts is clearly a superior technology. In our experience, Gmail video chat had a tendency to stutter and occasionally quit — a quality shared in the past with iChat video, but not with Apple’s Facetime, Skype or Google Hangouts.

Hangouts also scales a lot better, making it much easier to add new people to the meeting. Audio is spectacularly good at long range. It’s likely the best choice for a company looking for a free alternative to Cisco Telepresence, for example.

And then there’s the feature that the Gmail team hints at in its blog — the ability to add moustaches, beards, halos and other personal decorations — not to mention cat and dog masks — which will appear to follow you throughout the chat.

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How to Ensure Your Subscribers See Images in Emails

We live in such a visual world where images and videos are seemingly everywhere. And consumers expect to see images in your email creative. Moreover, with the popularity of reading email on mobile devices that are fully equipped to render HYML, the audience who requires text-only emails is shrinking.

It’s important to have a properly formatted email creative with a compelling template, as this will assist in driving audience engagement and potentially advocacy. But many users turn off images in email.

In a recent study by Eloqua, 55% of consumers said they turn on the images in the emails that they receive. And 57% of consumers that state they check their primary personal email account on their mobile devices.

Far fewer consumers add sender addresses to their address book, which in most email clients will enable image rendering by default. Only 16% of consumers stated that they added an email marketer’s email address to their address book.

Follow these best practices to ensure that your subscribers can see and enjoy all of your images.

1. Adjust Size and Weight

Talk with your email service provider (ESP) to understand the limits of image size and weight, as some ESPs will compress images that are too big, which will ultimately degrade the quality of the image.

2. Use Image Alt Tags

For those that don’t turn on images, make sure that your images have a descriptive text alt tag that acts like a call to action.

For example, if there is an image of a red sweater that has a star burst offering 15% off sweaters, an ideal alt tag to the image would read, “15% off sweaters” not “red sweater image.” Use alt tags that evoke the purpose of the image. If you can’t figure out what that should be for an image, then perhaps you shouldn’t be using it.

3. Link to Hosted Version of the Email Creative

This is standard in most email marketing applications, but be sure to include a link at the top of your email template that simply says, “View email in your browser.”

Many times, marketers create emails that say, “Problem viewing images? Then Click Here to view in your browser.” This is too verbose and also in some email clients such as Gmail, the first words in the email creative get previewed and appended to the subject line. In this example your subject line would read, “Buy Our Best Products Now for 20% Off … Problem Viewing.” Simply offer a link to view the email in a browser.

4. Avoid Using Entirely Image-Based Email

As mentioned, ensure call-to-action images have alt tags and are additionally supported by text. Don’t put important disclaimers and required CAN-SPAM language in images. Rely on HTML tables and embedded tables with different colors to highlight any important calls to action, such as “Buy Now buttons.”

5. Test, Test, Test

See which images are working and which are not. Most ESPs offer a click-overlay heat map that visually shows you where users are clicking most. Test different images with dynamic content approaches. Vendors such as Movable Ink provide an easy-to-use technology that is ESP-agnostic to insert dynamic images that can change and expire content after the email has been sent.

It has been said that “A picture is worth a thousand words,” so ensure that you’re using those image-based words effectively and doing all that you can to make them render correctly.

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Google Talk Is Down for Most Users

Had problems using Google Talk this morning? You’re not alone. Google’s instant messaging service has been down for two hours for most users.

The problem is affecting both Google Apps and Gmail users, though Google Apps customers appear to be suffering the most.

Google noted the first disruption of service at 6:40 a.m. on itsApp Status Dashboard. By 6:50 a.m., the disruption was changed to “service outage.”

At 8:50 a.m., the company added this note to its dashboard:

“Our team is continuing to investigate this issue. We will provide an update by 7/26/12 9:50 a.m. with more information about this problem. Thank you for your patience.”

In other words, don’t expect to get a lot of work done using GTalk for at least the next hour.

Twitter isn’t down, though, so users are discussing the GTalk outage on the service.

We’ll update this post with more information as it become available.

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Day in the Life of a Future Facebook Phone

A gentle trilling on the bedside table rouses me from slumber; I fumble for the familiar blue-edged smartphone, and click its single button — adorned with a thumbs-up logo — to quell the alarm.

The phone snaps to life; as per usual, it drops in a few notifications then takes me straight to my Smart Feed. I remember not so long ago, when my phone’s default screen was a tray full of apps. Why, I wonder, did I ever want that terrifying level of choice? Just remind me about my appointments and to-dos, take me straight to the feed and be done with it. I can always swipe to the side to access my Facebook apps should I need them.

I spend a happy few minutes idly flicking through the feed. There aren’t too many sponsored stories at the moment; it’s mostly Instagram shots and the occasional news headline. The Facebook OS has learned my habits; it knows that’s about all I can cope with first thing in the morning.

As I fix the coffee and potter about the kitchen, one new sponsored story does get my attention — it’s a local flower store, reminding me about my wife’s birthday tomorrow. (Evidently it waited until our phones were sufficiently far apart to pop up.) The store has grabbed a picture of her smiling, next to a bouquet it thinks appropriate based on past purchases.

Well, I don’t want to put that little effort into it. So I tap a button to turn the ad into a reminder; later in the morning, I’ll click on it again to call the shop, customize the bouquet, and send them a virtual card I’ve scrawled out on the screen.

On the train into work, I make a few quick moves in a couple of Zynga games — didn’t their fortunes turn around when the Facebook phone launched — then plug in my headphones. Instantly, the Smart Feed transforms into a selection of Spotify songs and viral videos. I tap through the latter so I can get a jump on conversations at the watercooler.

At my desk, the feed transforms into news stories (with a special preference for ones it knows my colleagues have clicked on). There’s nothing major; a couple more pieces speculating on iOS 7, and how much it can compete with the Facebook OS. Rumor has it that Apple is working with Twitter, its new best friend, to put a different kind of news feed front and center.

Makes a lot of sense, as the comments point out; the company is going to have to do something radical to restore the luster of the iPhone, especially after Facebook started swiping Apple’s best mobile engineers last year. Besides, the Facebook phone is heavily subsidized by advertisers; it’s hard to compete with almost free.

I make a few free calls throughout the morning, using the phone’s Skype integration. It’s as simple as holding the thumbs-up button and saying my contact’s name. Most of my friends have a similar device; those that don’t, I can still reach via their desktop. Everyone keeps a Facebook tab open these days in case they miss a call.

Lunchtime, and my screen fills up with coupons from local merchants. I dismiss them all with a tap, head to my favorite sandwich place, point the phone at a QR code reader. Hey presto: my tenth sandwich is free. The Facebook OS was rolled out with a massive small business partner program; Zuckerberg always said that was where the big money was.

I spend much of the afternoon responding to Facebook messages, which is slowly replacing email across the company. But old habits die hard, so I have to swipe up to the Gmail app, too. Google was smart to get on the platform early, and Facebook was smart to build its entire OS on a modified and fully licensed Android kernel. That helped keep the peace between the two tech giants.

On the train home, an “on this day in history” news item catches my eye. Turns out it’s exactly a year since Facebook’s first faltering earnings call — the one in which Zuckerberg famously denied the company was “building” its own phone. Well, of course it wasn’t building the phone itself, I smile to myself, turning the handset over and glancing at its HTC logo.

What we should have listened to was another quote from the call: “having a device wherever you are creates more opportunities for sharing and connecting.” That was the understatement of the year.

But it gets me thinking, and after dinner I tap out a post on my Timeline, imagining an alternative reality in which Facebook didn’t spring its compelling mobile OS on an unsuspecting world. Imagine it: the stock stillslumped around the $24 mark instead of a few hundred dollars beyond it; the social network still getting dinged for its poor mobile apps; Apple and Google still ascendant. Perhaps it might be a better world, without this devilishly addictive device supported by just about every advertiser on the planet.

There’s not too much time to think about it, though. The NyQuil app wants my attention, offering to set my alarm now for a perfect night’s sleep. I yawn. Tomorrow is another ad-driven day.

1. The Facebook Phone

A Facebook smartphone concept on Yanko Design -- and created by designer Michal Bonikowski -- gives us a look into what the device could potentially look like.

Image via Yanko Design

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2. Front Look

Featuring a sleek case in Facebook’s signature blue, the device is made from metal and touts a 4.2-inch screen.

Image via Yanko Design

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3. Back View

It also features a 5-megapixel camera in the front and an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera.

Image via Yanko Design

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4. The Full Concept

A look at both sides.

Image via Yanko Design

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5. Docking Station

Bonikowski also included in his design a docking and charging station.

Image via Yanko Design

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