Facebook improves friend tagging

Facebook has made two improvements to its @ Mentions feature when tagging friends. The first allows you to tag a friend without first typing the @ symbol and the second allows you to shorten a friend tag, as first pointed out by Inside Facebook.

Previously, you had to insert the @ symbol and then type out your Facebook friend’s name to tag them. Now, the automatic friend tag suggestion feature will activate when you type out a friend’s name starting with a capital letter and type five or more characters of a friend’s name, or type a whole name that is less than five characters.

Previously, you had to leave your friend’s full name or it wouldn’t appear as a tag and trigger a notification for them. Now, after you’ve tagged a friend in a post or comment, you can then shorten it by deleting the beginning or end of your friend’s name. The remaining part of the name will still be highlighted, and will show up as a link once the post is published.