4 ms·

Are you sure this is not about the facebook 'like' concept? Facebook has brought the 'like' keyword into the mainstream, and the 'like' concept is creating a gr

Are you sure this is not about the facebook 'like' concept? Facebook has brought the 'like' keyword into the mainstream, and the 'like' concept is creating a graph over the entire web that is basically sorting the web by how many people actively like the pages. Perhaps google sees that this approach is basically like their page-rank, but more exclusive and less spammable. Since this 'like' concept was quickly understood by people on facebook, owning the key 'like' domain means that google is poised to exploit the understanding of 'like'. Additionally, it gains all the search knowledge and skills of the people behind the like.com website. This facebook social graph thing with 'liking' websites may be important.

nostromo 16y ago
Interesting comment. If facebook's "like" was to replace PageRank they would have to have buttons on a whole lot more pages (Google said a while back they consider one trillion URLs in their index). Especially sites like Wikipedia and Craigslist -- which seem unlikely to ever use facebook widgets. Do you ever think "liking" could realistically replace Google's crawler approach?
- relix 16y ago
  It could not. "liking" is inherently biased. It is in no way an objective measurement of usefulness. Pages that contain negative content will never be "liked" even though they might be very useful or linked to a lot. As an extreme example, say a mass-murderer becomes very famous. No one (except for a trolling few) will "like" a page giving information about him, like on wikipedia. But this page would be a lot more interesting than a sensationalist article describing him as the second and third coming of Satan, which would be "liked" a lot more, without really being more valuable.
deleted 16y ago
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mkramlich 16y ago
my guess is it's the domain Like.com plus their particular image search & tagging/semantic work plus possibly talent plus eliminating competitor plus denying it as acquisition by another competitor, plus eyeball stream. okay that's not a specific guess at all!

nostromo 16y ago

Interesting comment. If facebook's "like" was to replace PageRank they would have to have buttons on a whole lot more pages (Google said a while back they consider one trillion URLs in their index). Especially sites like Wikipedia and Craigslist -- which seem unlikely to ever use facebook widgets. Do you ever think "liking" could realistically replace Google's crawler approach?

relix 16y ago
It could not. "liking" is inherently biased. It is in no way an objective measurement of usefulness. Pages that contain negative content will never be "liked" even though they might be very useful or linked to a lot. As an extreme example, say a mass-murderer becomes very famous. No one (except for a trolling few) will "like" a page giving information about him, like on wikipedia. But this page would be a lot more interesting than a sensationalist article describing him as the second and third coming of Satan, which would be "liked" a lot more, without really being more valuable.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

mkramlich 16y ago

my guess is it's the domain Like.com plus their particular image search & tagging/semantic work plus possibly talent plus eliminating competitor plus denying it as acquisition by another competitor, plus eyeball stream. okay that's not a specific guess at all!