With so many people having facebook accounts, and facebook’s user base significantly growing as well as twitter rejecting facebook’s offers to buy them, it was only a matter of time before facebook decided to implement the ‘@’ feature in some form or fashion.

Today facebook launched the @mention feature which takes the basic principle of twitter’s @username piece and implemented it on facebook. Now you can @your-friends-name and have your post/status/etc post on your friends wall as well. In addition to being able to @-tag your friends, you can also do the same to groups, fan pages, etc.

Let’s try an example shall we:

@mention facebook feature

So what does this mean for us?

Well, first lets think about this new facebook feature as an extension of the already popular “tag” function. From images to videos to now basic posts and status updates, this will allow you to offer a more social connection to your posts. Instead of saying “I went to lunch with the people at Evolve Media”, now you can do something like “I went to lunch with my brother @evolvemedia today” * The @evolvemedia would be replaced with the link to the company’s account. The update will post on both yours and “joe’s” walls.

Call is saving some time.

I have to admit, I really don’t go around reading who said what on the main wall when I log in, but it would be of some value to be able to quickly see any mention of me on my own profile. Which you would probably already know about since you will get a notification of this action.

Pros:

* Could be used for tracking information later on.
* Posts about you, your company etc, that were missed could quickly be seen and response with customers, friends and such would be faster.

Cons:

* Maybe the other person does not want to be mentioned.
* The world is losing its privacy.
* I can just write on the other persons wall.