A very important aspect of birthdays, is the part where your friends wish you. Few of them surprise you with a party, a handful may call you up, some might leave you an SMS, and the rest? Well, they'll wish you on Facebook. The advantages of wishing someone on Facebook are manifold. The miser's way to look at it is as follows:

A surprise party for a friend: Rs. 500 Calling up your friend to wish him/her: Rs. 3.00 Texting a friend on his/her B'day night: Rs. 1.00 Wishing him/her on facebook: 'Price' 'less' There are some ways to wish a person that cost you tangibly, for everything else, there's Facebook.

Anyhow, it's very well possible that among all the people who wished you via Facebook, there are some genuine wishes tied in there as well. A lot is conveyed through the overall tone of the post that the person named X writes on your wall. Given below is a simple characterisation and analysis of different kinds of Facebook wishing methods. Note that none of these have ever happened to me, because I've never been on Facebook during any of my birthdays. :) Since Wall Posts are public by default, these happen to be my observations from countless number of Birthday wishes that appear on my news feed. So with no further ado: 1) The personalised birthday wish: Example: "Hey Pluto! Have a wonderful Birthday! Hope you write twice as much code as you wrote last year! And don't forget our little race to the Turin prize dream. :)" Analysis: It usually starts off with a pet name of yours. Even otherwise, note how personalised the post is all in all. And finally, it ends with a nice memory that you and that person share. Truly genuine! 2) The you-happened-to-be-on-my-list-so-here-goes wish: Examples: "Happy Birthday!" / "happy bday!" / "happy birthday. Have a blast!" / "happy bday. Hope you have a gr8 yr ahead of u!" etc. Analysis: Exactly what the name suggests. These are standard birthday wish templates that everyone unconsciously types. It's perfectly understandable if 90% of your wishes look like this. After all, there'd be hardly any Facebook users who have contact lists filled with only their best friends. Right? 3) The I-care-so-little-I-don't-even-bother-to-double-check-the-spelling wish: Examples: "happy bitrhday!" / "happo bithday" Analysis: This can fit into category 2) , with an extra tinge of 'I don't care'-edness. The number of such wishes that you'll get is directly proportional to the number of people you have in your contact lists (and consequently, the number of people who don't give a rat's ass about you having become a year older). 4) The I'm-obnoxious-when-it-comes-to-online-presence wish: Examples: "hAPPYYYY BDAYY!!!11 YOOOOOO" / "hey budddyyyy. hav   a happpyyyyyyy bday!!! hav a gud1 1!!" / "HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAV RCOKIN PARTY YAAAAAAAAR!" Analysis: These are typically a trademark of people who have the 'describe me' section of their profiles filled with variants of the following:

a) "hiiiiiiiiii" b) "wat do i say abt myself??? if u want 2 knw more, add me as a frend!!!! i promise ill b best frend of u!" c) "im a cool person...... u wont regret doing frandship wid me cuz i live life to fullest." d) "HIIII! IM LOOKING FOR FRAANDSHIP. IM VERY FUN TO HANGOUTWITH"

... and so forth. Yes, the word you're looking for, is lame. Unfortunately, all social networking websites happen to be littered with such profiles. That's as much as I can think of right now. And by the way, I personally admit to using methods 1) and 2). :) Happy Facebooking!