Facebook launches Poke app for iPhone with 10 sec message

Facebook on Friday announced the launch of the Poke app for the iPhone and iPod Touch. As regular Facebook users might remember Poke is a popular feature on the site which lets people, well, ‘poke’ each other. In the app, Facebook lets users send pokes, video, pictures and text messages to their friends. The catch is that the message can last for only one second to a maximum of 10 seconds. but, you can choose the amount of time it lasts. Also it seems that the message can be only 120 characters long.  When you’re sending a message you will see the amount of time on the top centre of your message. Click on it to choose how much time you want the message to last. And is Facebook going to be storing these messages? Well not really.  According to this TechCrunch post, Pokes are encrypted, and Facebook deletes the encryption keys two days after they’re read so they’re unreadable. Key backups are destroyed within 90 days, making a poke completely inaccessible.  [caption id=“attachment_567014” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Facebook Poke App. Image courtesy: Facebook newsroom.[/caption] Oh and Facebook has taken precautions against people sending messages that are too naughty or just plain disturbing. Users can click on the gear icon on the top left hand side of the app and click on report/block if they get a message they don’t like something they receive. Facebook hopes to challenge apps like SnapChat which also allow iOS users to send video and text messages for under ten seconds.