Facebook just got more adorable, at least if users can ignore more serious issues about Facebook's problems with privacy. The social network just decided to take Stickers to the next level by making them available on users' Timelines, Groups and Events.
Those big emoji-like icons were previously available only through private messages and Facebook's standalone messaging app Messenger. But Facebook has decided to bring over all that cuteness to other places. Now, users can flood other people's posts with nothing but Pusheen cats and giant smileys.
"I think stickers will allow people to reply to a variety of posts in a more fun way than words alone," says Bob Baldwin, the Facebook engineer responsible for pushing Stickers to the public space on the social network. "You can now easily show your excitement for a post with good news, cheer up a friend who's feeling down, and express a variety of more nuanced reactions."
Baldwin explains that Stickers for the news feed was the result of a one-night Hackathon project that he worked on with fellow Facebook engineer Kwame Thomison in New York. The partners made the prototype for the web available to Facebook's employees, who ended up loving the Stickers so much that Baldwin and Thomison decided to build Stickers for mobile web at a second Hackathon night in California. Baldwin says Stickers for the Android and iOS apps came soon after that.
Baldwin is also responsible for other additions to the comment box, which he says is his favorite Facebook project to hack. Last year, Baldwin worked on a Hackathon project to include emojis into comments and, later, photos.
To post Stickers, users only need to click or tap the smiley icon on the comment box and choose from a small group of Stickers, but Facebook has its own Sticker Store where users can get sticker packs grouped together by theme, such as packs for "Despicable Me 2" stickers, sports teams and popular games.
Stickers are not currently available on Pages and sticker packs are available to personal users for free. However, it remains to be seen how Facebook plans to monetize the feature once it allows brands and businesses to start using Stickers to promote their pages. Other mobile messaging apps, such as Viber and WeChat, have their own specialized sticker sets that are sold as in-app purchases to users who want to use more than the standard set of stickers.
