Time was when a status message on the internet chat list was just that — informing your friends if you were available for chat.
In the age of Facebook and Google Talk, the definition of status message has been expanded beyond chat-availability.
It could be anything — marital status, love status, professional status, mood status, how-far-my-goofiness-goes status or my-growing-abuse-vocabulary-after-break-up status.
Welcome change
So after years of being only Available, Busy or Idle, it was a welcome change when Facebook and Google Talk entered the fray and gave a blank space to write whatever you pleased.
Suddenly women — and men — were given the kind of freedom of expression that no constitution, newspaper editor or book publisher offered. For instance, people have the freedom to abuse their boss.
Vinita Kansal, who works in a publishing house, remembers how, after a massive showdown with her superior, she just wrote a simple sentence as her status message: “Where should I throw the body after the deed?''
“At once everyone on my list knew I wanted to kill somebody and the only deterrent was the thought that I had no place to put the body. A lot of humorous commiserations ended cheering me up,'' she says.
Media professional Pratima Basu had even charted out a dose of stinging slaps she wanted to plant on the face of her boss.
In the case of advocate Vandana Pruthi, things went a bit off tangent when friends read her Facebook status as saying she wanted to kill someone (referring to a senior colleague).
Friends of hers ended up messaging her husband, asking him what he had done to deserve such a strong reaction from her.
Indirect conversations
The status message also has the delightful ambiguity that few media offer.
You can communicate whatever you're thinking or feeling without really saying them directly — an ambiguity that works very well for post break-up communication.
Bhavna Mittal, a lecturer in English in Delhi, in a particularly disgruntled mood, just wrote: “Lie to me, she said, I love you, he said.''
“This was intended for my boyfriend who made big promises at one point but let me down. That one line told the whole story without really saying anything,'' she says.
You don't have to mention to whom your message is directed.
The person will always come to know and often respond accordingly. In Bhavna's case, for instance, the person concerned just saw the message and said: “I know what you mean. Please don't get me wrong. I didn't lie to you.''
Pamela Mayne, who works for a Delhi production house, even managed to retaliate through a status message to her former boyfriend, Charlie, who had ditched her.
Mind the mood
Her status read: “Pamela has just found an able successor to Charlie the pathetic, self-important, comic-strip-worthy piece of s**t.'' Some people use Facebook as a mood barometer.
Journalist Purbi Bhasin, says she changes her status message all the time because it's a great way to let people know her different moods.
It is a great conversation-starter (rather non-starter, on days she is in a bad mood and her foul-sounding status messages keep people away).
“My list of friends on Google Talk or Facebook isn't very long. I only have people who are either good friends or family. So they usually immediately connect and catch on to it,'' she says.
Lyrical representation
Being in the writing profession, Bhasin also feels the need to be creative with these mood indicators. She cites a Bon Jovi song, Ugly, that she puts as a status message on days she feels she isn't looking her best.
“I was really upset once and just said Boulevard of Broken Dreams or Standing in Line to Hit a New Low. Somehow, that helped vent my feeling without really having to talk to or confide in someone about it,'' she says.
Wit and whims
For some, Facebook is just a way to say something provocative. PR professional Vishesh Sharma just says “Can I go nowhere?'' when he wants some space.
A sleep-deprived Sakshi Talpade says she feels like she has a heavy-metal band holding a concert inside her head.
MBA student Shivalika Kumar, after a particularly harrowing economics class, wonders what life without “heteroskedasticity'' would be.
And some of us may wonder what life without status messages would be.
Facebook: The new town crier
It's official: The social networking website is where you go to share your heartbreak
When Chelsy Davy announced her break-up from Prince Harry this weekend, she took control of the story, acting with speed — and stealth — to pre-empt the press. She used Facebook to spread the word.
The second she changed her status to “Relationship: Not in one'', all her Facebook friends received a broken heart icon to tell them the news.
With this cleverly dispersed story, the social networking site came of age. It is officially the new town crier. And what better way to leak an awkward story than make Facebook your first port of call.
But it's not just bad news. Facebook fans use the site to announce engagements, births, new jobs, even book launches (cheaper than a publicist).
There is a downside to this “access all areas'' culture, of course.
If you innocently remove your relationship status (maybe you're nervous about too much personal information onscreen), Facebook immediately sends a message to all your friends saying you've split up. Cue dozens of condolence emails.
But play your cards right and the new stealth announcement can save you time — and money. After all, it's far cheaper than taking out an engagement notice in your local paper.
— Evening Standard
Military goes on tech offensive
Some of the US military's top flag officers are becoming dedicated bloggers and attempting to change the military and extend their reach, one Facebook “friend'' at a time.
They are using the internet and social media to reach down within their own traditionally top-down organisations — and outside them, too — to do something the military isn't known for: creating more transparency to empower young military leaders and the public.
Some senior officers say transforming the military means more than buying next-generation vehicles or developing new training. It is giving more people greater access to what they are doing and thinking.
That's already happening as top officers create their own blogs and Facebook pages to keep pace with the plugged-in, hyperconnected charges they lead.
Power play
General William Ward, head of the US Africa Command, and his staff use the internet to explain the new command's purpose to a wary audience.
Admiral Thad Allen, commandant of the Coast Guard, has a running dialogue online about how he is trying to transform his organisation.
“We need to understand that we are not living in the same social environment that we grew up in,'' says Admiral Allen, who announced a new information “revolution'' — not in a press release or an “all hands memo'' but on YouTube, the popular online video website.
Allen is embracing the-medium-is-the-message and he sets a course to engage the rank, file and the public at large on his wide-ranging ideas.
“This is a permanent feature of our environment and we need to understand how to operate in it, communicate with our people,'' he says.
What's he talking about? Allen wants to make junior leaders smarter about where he is taking his organisation, empowering them to interpret his message to act on their own.
That means, in part, daily blogging on his site about his travels, his thoughts and the people he meets.
Opening up
Some senior officers such as Allen want to see the military harness social media such as blogs and Facebook to help shape the public debate about national security policy by providing more information to those with a vested interest in a given topic.
— The Christian Science Monitor
