Facebook Launches Poke, An iPhone App for Self-Destructing Messages

Facebook on Friday 21st December, 2012 released a standalone mobile application called 'Facebook Poke', a brand new iOS app expanding on Facebook's original "poke" concept.

The poke feature has been a part of Facebook since 2004. Now we’re excited to share a new poke experience for mobile

said Facebook in its Blog post.

The new Poke application, which is now available in the App Store, derives concept made popular by mobile app SnapChat and gives members a rapid way to 'poke' friends with text, photo, or video messages that disappear after a few seconds. It lets you send ‘Self-destructing’ messages.

Users can specify their location when sending a message, and see when a recipient takes a screenshot. After receiving a poke, users simply press and hold the person's name to view the message.

You can poke an individual friend or several at once. Each message expires after a specific time, either 1, 3, 5 or 10 seconds as decided by the sender. When time runs out, the message disappears from the app.

While Snapchat currently supports photo and video, Facebook Poke goes the extra faraway by additionally supporting text and the classic ‘poke’ for its message types.