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It's a long article, but here seem to be the relevant parts: Facebook researchers started the project by compiling the most frequent responses people had to po

It's a long article, but here seem to be the relevant parts: Facebook researchers started the project by compiling the most frequent responses people had to posts: “haha,” “LOL,” and “omg so funny” all went in the laughter category, for instance. Emojis with eyes that transformed into hearts, GIF animations with hearts beating out of chests, and “luv u” went in the love category. Then they boiled those categories into six common responses, which Facebook calls Reactions: angry, sad, wow, haha, yay, and love. Facebook Reactions won’t get rid of like—it will be an extension. Within the company, there was some debate on how to add the options without making every post look crowded with things to click. The simpler Facebook is to use, the more people will use it. Zuckerberg had a solution: Just display the usual thumbs-up button under each post, but if someone on her smartphone presses down on it a little longer, the other options will reveal themselves. Cox’s team went with that and added animation to clarify their meaning, making the yellow emojis bounce and change expression. The angry one turns red, looking downward in rage, for example. Once people click their responses, the posts in News Feed show a tally of how many wows, hahas, and loves each generated. edit: Yay was rejected as a choice.

ricardolopes 11y ago
Thank you for the great summary. The article was definitely too long with too much filler, and with distracting animations that made me just give up on it.
- ethagknight 11y ago
  I thought the same thing, and left the article to come to HN hoping for a summary (and got it!), BUT.. to be fair, the title "Inside Facebook's decision.." hints at being an exposé rather than a quick factoid.
cableshaft 11y ago
Sounds a bit like it's going in the Slashdot direction. I once had a very similar idea when I used to have a website with a custom forum and wanted a way to describe certain posts with a handful of simple tags. Personally I think a 'helpful' or 'useful' reaction is badly needed also, but apparently it's not a common enough reaction to show up on Facebook's radar.
- tempestn 11y ago
  Wouldn't the standard 'Like' be sufficient for that?
bonobo3000 11y ago
interesting to compare FBs responses with psychology's basic emotions - FB 6 basic emotions - angry, sad, wow, haha, yay, and love Humintell's 7 basic emotions - anger, sadness, surprise (aka wow), joy (aka haha/yay?), fear, disgust, contempt. those last 3 aren't buttons on FB for obvious reasons :)
MicroBerto 11y ago
Thanks for the summary. Obviously, given the near six billion dollars they made, they know what they're doing. But.... This doesn't fix anything currently making Facebook suck. It makes it noisier. My solution would be a tagging system. People can add tags (that don't even need to be shown by default), and other friends' feeds can be filtered by the tags. For instance: This is a baby pic? Tag it as baby. In my feed, I will never need to see another baby again. Other people don't like politics or football. They can get tagged as such, and ignored by those who don't like those topics. This would absolutely positively fix Facebook for me. They are smart enough to make it work. No more babies PLEASE!!!
- nemothekid 11y ago
  Given how YouTube's tagging system eventually ended up working , and twitters current one I suspect tags won't function like you envision #reply #hn #hackers #yc #apple #eatingdinner
  - ta6334 11y ago
    Image recognition, language processing might be a good fit here. I imagine it's on their radar considering all their interest in AI.
  - MicroBerto 11y ago
    The key words in my post were that the friends tag them, and the tags are not seen by default. After a certain number of "categories" are added, they wouldn't need any more. It'd be a messy solution for Facebook but an awesome and nonintrusive solution for annoyed users once it's working.
- markdown 11y ago
  baby-holding-gluten-free-apple.jpg #baby #myLittleGirl #littleHands #myWorld #parenting #healthyLiving #mom #momKnowsBest #sanFrancisco #sanFran #USA #earth #apple #grannySmith #farmFresh #fuckGluten
  - MicroBerto 11y ago

ricardolopes 11y ago

Thank you for the great summary. The article was definitely too long with too much filler, and with distracting animations that made me just give up on it.

ethagknight 11y ago
I thought the same thing, and left the article to come to HN hoping for a summary (and got it!), BUT.. to be fair, the title "Inside Facebook's decision.." hints at being an exposé rather than a quick factoid.

cableshaft 11y ago

Sounds a bit like it's going in the Slashdot direction. I once had a very similar idea when I used to have a website with a custom forum and wanted a way to describe certain posts with a handful of simple tags. Personally I think a 'helpful' or 'useful' reaction is badly needed also, but apparently it's not a common enough reaction to show up on Facebook's radar.

tempestn 11y ago
Wouldn't the standard 'Like' be sufficient for that?

bonobo3000 11y ago

interesting to compare FBs responses with psychology's basic emotions - FB 6 basic emotions - angry, sad, wow, haha, yay, and love Humintell's 7 basic emotions - anger, sadness, surprise (aka wow), joy (aka haha/yay?), fear, disgust, contempt. those last 3 aren't buttons on FB for obvious reasons :)

MicroBerto 11y ago

Thanks for the summary. Obviously, given the near six billion dollars they made, they know what they're doing. But.... This doesn't fix anything currently making Facebook suck. It makes it noisier. My solution would be a tagging system. People can add tags (that don't even need to be shown by default), and other friends' feeds can be filtered by the tags. For instance: This is a baby pic? Tag it as baby. In my feed, I will never need to see another baby again. Other people don't like politics or football. They can get tagged as such, and ignored by those who don't like those topics. This would absolutely positively fix Facebook for me. They are smart enough to make it work. No more babies PLEASE!!!

nemothekid 11y ago
Given how YouTube's tagging system eventually ended up working , and twitters current one I suspect tags won't function like you envision #reply #hn #hackers #yc #apple #eatingdinner
- ta6334 11y ago
  Image recognition, language processing might be a good fit here. I imagine it's on their radar considering all their interest in AI.
- MicroBerto 11y ago
  The key words in my post were that the friends tag them, and the tags are not seen by default. After a certain number of "categories" are added, they wouldn't need any more. It'd be a messy solution for Facebook but an awesome and nonintrusive solution for annoyed users once it's working.
markdown 11y ago
baby-holding-gluten-free-apple.jpg #baby #myLittleGirl #littleHands #myWorld #parenting #healthyLiving #mom #momKnowsBest #sanFrancisco #sanFran #USA #earth #apple #grannySmith #farmFresh #fuckGluten
- MicroBerto 11y ago