4 ms·

I'm sorry to hear that this behavior was a surprise to you- Perhaps FB could do a better job at making it clear what this does, but to me this was always the ex

by e1ven 16y ago

I'm sorry to hear that this behavior was a surprise to you- Perhaps FB could do a better job at making it clear what this does, but to me this was always the expected (and desired!) behavior. The Facebook "Like" button is akin to "Follow" on Twitter. It subscribes you to their feed. That's the whole POINT of the like button. The "Tell your friends" is ancillary; It's akin to twitter telling your feed "Colin is now following .... CocaCola" It's a VERY useful feature, and the name makes sense to me; If you Like AntelopeFurniture.com, and they have a new sale running or something, you'd want to hear about it. You already said you like them ;) With that understanding in mind ("Facebook:like == Twitter:Follow"), it starts to become clear that seeing their posts isn't spam- It's the entire point!

jonknee 16y ago
To me the Like button seems used like it's more similar to a Digg this button (they are frequently next to eachother even). While I expect that my Digg friends can see my Digg, I don't expect the article I just Dugg to be able and spam me later on. It's a huge invasion of privacy and Patrick's comparison to email opt-ins is on point.
- e1ven 16y ago
  FB has no ability to control where third-parties put the like button, but the functionality itself is very useful. I can't agree that it's an invasion of privacy- If I follow Dell on Twitter, I see everything Dell posts. That's the point. If I "like" Dell on Facebook, I see everything Dell posts. Again, that's the entire idea. You can argue the name isn't perfect, but neither is "Follow", for that matter. Subscribe, perhaps. Take a look the HELP section- There is a big button for the Like feature, and what it means. http://www.facebook.com/#!/help/?faq=17115 http://www.facebook.com/#!/help/?faq=17115 What does it mean to "Like" a Page? When you click "Like" on a Page, you are making a connection to that Page. The Page will be displayed in your profile, and in turn, you will be displayed on the Page as a person who likes that Page. The Page will also be able to post content into your News Feed.
- ErrantX 16y ago
  It's a huge invasion of privacy Oh come on. That's stretching into silly territory.
  - ErrantX 16y ago
    Can anyone actually defend the statement that it is a huge privacy invasion? I think it is a silly statement to make because, clearly, there is little or no privacy invasion. The button is probably a little deceptive to users - but clicking it does not open up any private details about you. It does, yes, allow them to post messages which appear in your news feed; but I am struggling to see that a a huge privacy problem Sounds like band wagonning to me :) (sorry for such a short comment earlier)
bad_user 16y ago
> The Facebook "Like" button is akin to "Follow" on Twitter It doesn't "sound" like it to me ... I thought that when I pressed "Like" I simply got counted, nothing more. And since when in English ... Like =~ Follow? Sure, maybe for maniacs.
- pyre 16y ago
  I think this is the crux of the matter. Sure "I Like <something>" may lead into "I want to receive more information about <something>" but it's not necessarily a '===' relationship it's not even an 'implies' relationship. More like "x implies y sometimes."
- pbhjpbhj 16y ago
  >And since when in English ... Like =~ Follow? Sure, maybe for maniacs. If you're going to be pedantic about made up web-2.0 (3?) terms then why not argue that "follow" on twitter doesn't let you actually follow the person only receive occasional messages from them. Why don't they call it "receive occasional messages from"? There's your answer.
  - invisible 16y ago
    It is straight out ignorant to say follow doesn't imply you'll be interacting in the future with that person/company. Like (in itself) is an action verb that implies approval of the subject matter, not interaction. I like articles on HN (by up voting) but that does not mean I want to receive regular updates from the site due to a singular approval of one piece of content.
    - pbhjpbhj 16y ago
      >It is straight out ignorant to say follow doesn't imply you'll be interacting in the future with that person/company. Follow as a natural word is one-way relationship - you follow someone else, they don't have to take any action. It's thus not interaction. Nor is it a word that requires a continued future action; "following" would do that. I'm not sure there's a good word for the type of relationship you're [wrongly IMO] saying "follow" implies, perhaps "liaise" or "apprentice" is close?
patio11 16y ago
I think that the user expectation when clicking Like next to an antelope chair is to register approval of an antelope chair, not to sign up for the I-can't-believe-its-not-mailing list about antelope chairs. Your savvier users probably understand that Liking is semi-public rather than anonymous, like HN upvotes are. (Your savvier users clearly do not include some of my younger cousins, grumble grumble.) Compare Antelope Furniture's desire to deliver news about its new sales to their legal requirements for handling things like email. Someone has typed in their email address (which is only used for receiving communication): can you assume they want to hear about your sales? No. Someone clicks a thumbs up. Can you assume they want to hear about your sales? ... Really? I mean, pretend for a second that HN makes its upvote buttons into functionally equivalent copies of Facebook like tomorrow morning. Do you think the #1 thread in the morning will be titled "Wow, cool"? (Particularly after somebody with multiple kilokarma gets the bright idea to hit the broadcast button?)
- mikeknoop 16y ago
  That might be the expectation of certain "Like" buttons floating around the web, however Like buttons (aka "Become a Fan") within the Facebook context have always allowed that Page or Open Graph Object owner to publish messages into your main news feed. Why would you want to create two different user experiences tied with one common button?
ugh 16y ago
I can understand why someone would be confused about that but I’m not really sure whether a frequent user of Facebook would be. I have never ‘liked’ anything and as such never experienced the consequences of doing so. I figured that because of the placement of like buttons on websites (in the sidebar or below articles, often next to digg or reddit buttons) clicks on the ‘like’ button are akin to upvotes. I’m not at all a frequent user of Facebook, that’s why I’m not sure how widespread that perception is among frequent users. I never read anything in my Facebook stream (or however that is called) anyway, so I couldn’t care less.

by e1ven 16y ago

jonknee 16y ago

To me the Like button seems used like it's more similar to a Digg this button (they are frequently next to eachother even). While I expect that my Digg friends can see my Digg, I don't expect the article I just Dugg to be able and spam me later on. It's a huge invasion of privacy and Patrick's comparison to email opt-ins is on point.

e1ven 16y ago
FB has no ability to control where third-parties put the like button, but the functionality itself is very useful. I can't agree that it's an invasion of privacy- If I follow Dell on Twitter, I see everything Dell posts. That's the point. If I "like" Dell on Facebook, I see everything Dell posts. Again, that's the entire idea. You can argue the name isn't perfect, but neither is "Follow", for that matter. Subscribe, perhaps. Take a look the HELP section- There is a big button for the Like feature, and what it means. http://www.facebook.com/#!/help/?faq=17115 http://www.facebook.com/#!/help/?faq=17115 What does it mean to "Like" a Page? When you click "Like" on a Page, you are making a connection to that Page. The Page will be displayed in your profile, and in turn, you will be displayed on the Page as a person who likes that Page. The Page will also be able to post content into your News Feed.
ErrantX 16y ago
It's a huge invasion of privacy Oh come on. That's stretching into silly territory.
- ErrantX 16y ago
  Can anyone actually defend the statement that it is a huge privacy invasion? I think it is a silly statement to make because, clearly, there is little or no privacy invasion. The button is probably a little deceptive to users - but clicking it does not open up any private details about you. It does, yes, allow them to post messages which appear in your news feed; but I am struggling to see that a a huge privacy problem Sounds like band wagonning to me :) (sorry for such a short comment earlier)

bad_user 16y ago

> The Facebook "Like" button is akin to "Follow" on Twitter It doesn't "sound" like it to me ... I thought that when I pressed "Like" I simply got counted, nothing more. And since when in English ... Like =~ Follow? Sure, maybe for maniacs.

pyre 16y ago
I think this is the crux of the matter. Sure "I Like <something>" may lead into "I want to receive more information about <something>" but it's not necessarily a '===' relationship it's not even an 'implies' relationship. More like "x implies y sometimes."
pbhjpbhj 16y ago
>And since when in English ... Like =~ Follow? Sure, maybe for maniacs. If you're going to be pedantic about made up web-2.0 (3?) terms then why not argue that "follow" on twitter doesn't let you actually follow the person only receive occasional messages from them. Why don't they call it "receive occasional messages from"? There's your answer.
- invisible 16y ago
  It is straight out ignorant to say follow doesn't imply you'll be interacting in the future with that person/company. Like (in itself) is an action verb that implies approval of the subject matter, not interaction. I like articles on HN (by up voting) but that does not mean I want to receive regular updates from the site due to a singular approval of one piece of content.
  - pbhjpbhj 16y ago
    >It is straight out ignorant to say follow doesn't imply you'll be interacting in the future with that person/company. Follow as a natural word is one-way relationship - you follow someone else, they don't have to take any action. It's thus not interaction. Nor is it a word that requires a continued future action; "following" would do that. I'm not sure there's a good word for the type of relationship you're [wrongly IMO] saying "follow" implies, perhaps "liaise" or "apprentice" is close?

patio11 16y ago

I think that the user expectation when clicking Like next to an antelope chair is to register approval of an antelope chair, not to sign up for the I-can't-believe-its-not-mailing list about antelope chairs. Your savvier users probably understand that Liking is semi-public rather than anonymous, like HN upvotes are. (Your savvier users clearly do not include some of my younger cousins, grumble grumble.) Compare Antelope Furniture's desire to deliver news about its new sales to their legal requirements for handling things like email. Someone has typed in their email address (which is only used for receiving communication): can you assume they want to hear about your sales? No. Someone clicks a thumbs up. Can you assume they want to hear about your sales? ... Really? I mean, pretend for a second that HN makes its upvote buttons into functionally equivalent copies of Facebook like tomorrow morning. Do you think the #1 thread in the morning will be titled "Wow, cool"? (Particularly after somebody with multiple kilokarma gets the bright idea to hit the broadcast button?)

mikeknoop 16y ago
That might be the expectation of certain "Like" buttons floating around the web, however Like buttons (aka "Become a Fan") within the Facebook context have always allowed that Page or Open Graph Object owner to publish messages into your main news feed. Why would you want to create two different user experiences tied with one common button?

ugh 16y ago

I can understand why someone would be confused about that but I’m not really sure whether a frequent user of Facebook would be. I have never ‘liked’ anything and as such never experienced the consequences of doing so. I figured that because of the placement of like buttons on websites (in the sidebar or below articles, often next to digg or reddit buttons) clicks on the ‘like’ button are akin to upvotes. I’m not at all a frequent user of Facebook, that’s why I’m not sure how widespread that perception is among frequent users. I never read anything in my Facebook stream (or however that is called) anyway, so I couldn’t care less.