Are you tired of not having a more efficient way to stay in touch with all of the people trying to communicate with you on Facebook? Overwhelmed by the hundreds of people tagging your name every day? If not then the Facebook Mentions app probably isn’t for you, and you’re probably not a celebrity. Sorry to have to break it to you like that.
No, Facebook Mentions is meant for people infinitely more important and popular than any of us regular Facebook users. It allows verified Facebook accounts a much greater degree of interactivity with those who ‘Like’ them on Facebook.
Users can now start Q&A sessions by posting a status and then receiving a feed of posted questions which they can answer at will. The app also allows users to see statuses in which they are mentioned (a ‘mention’ in this case being the embedding of their official Facebook page in a status or comment), allowing them to then respond to the mention should they so desire.
All in all it looks set to make the idea of an official Facebook page a lot more relevant again. With the ascension of Twitter as the definitive platform for celebrities to communicate with their fans, Facebook pages have begun to feel like nothing more than tokens. Once you click the like button, the relationship is at best a one-way flow of information, and at worst completely obsolete.
It’s out right now for iOS and won’t cost you a penny. Mind you, if you’re the sort of person who’ll get any use out of it the price probably wouldn’t have been a concern. Regular Joes can download it too, it just might not be all that useful.
