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Last month I wrote that Facebook was preparing to launch a “Like” feature similar to the one currently provided on FriendFeed. Today, the company finally announced the launch of that feature. The main purpose of the feature is to avoid excessive comments from users saying “I agree” or “I like this”, etc.
It’s extremely simple and currently there is no page which aggregates items that you’ve liked as far as I can tell. FriendFeed probably isn’t too happy about this new feature, given that it’s identical to something that they’ve had since early on. Leah Pearlman equates this new feature to a five star rating system for restaurants. I’m not quite it’s really that robust.
So far I have yet to see the feature in action because I can’t find it on my friends’ walls but I’m sure that the feature will be launched shortly since the company has now formally announced the feature launch. Should FriendFeed be nervous? Of course, but not because Facebook has launched a new “like” feature. The real concern should be about Facebook opening up their news feed activity more extensively.
So do you like this new feature? Has it gone live for you yet? What other features would you like to see within profile news feeds?
I think this is a great move by Facebook. I also give FriendFeed a lot of credit in pioneering such a useful feature.
At the same time, I think FriendFeed must now work even harder in differentiating itself.
I’ve requested some friends to like a status update, have yet to see any real advantage to this new feature. They could sort likes and what not. It could become a way to promote an item to more friend’s feeds page, however unable to determine whether commenting on someone’s item (ie status update) gives more popularity credit or not.
Josh
The “like feature” was launched about a month ago on the swedish version of Facebook. I really like it, and use it frequently. Welcome to the club!
Maybe. I think that in future more and more websites could be working together. Websites that cater for people that has diferent social bookmarking tools should have an advantage. This type of voting is seen accross many social platforms and this is one of the things that incorporate a voting system.
I do not like getting short comments on my blog so I think that having this type of interactive option is great for the visitor that does not want to type a comment.
I don’t think it’s a very useful feature until Facebook makes a page that aggregates all your Likes. Until then it’s just an extra click.
I agree w/ ” Facebook User ” & Andrew Ledwith!
I am enjoying it, but at the moment am wondering why I need to receive instructional yellow tabs on my home page to tell me how to enter a status or post a message to my ‘Wall’.
The Semantic Web 3.0 can’t get here quick enough….
Seems like it’s like a thumb up on boardgamegeek.com. It’s fun!
Ditto: Needs a “value add” to make it more distinguishable and useful from FF’s original. I don’t believe it is enough to just “like” something. There needs to be an “actionable” component to the equation in order to make the information or data you’re “liking” to be of value to someone else. I already “like” too much stuff. =)
I fell into using it right away - I hadn’t heard about the forthcoming feature, but when I saw it, I knew what it meant, I saw it on a status I baically wanted to ackowledge, I hit “like” and there it was, easy as that.
I really do not like it. Is there any way to turn it off? I don’t think there is anyway to do that right now.
I made the mistake about voicing my dislike about the Like feature in my status.
Next thing I know, I’m getting notifications that over 30 of my friends have LIKEd my status.
Oh, the cruel irony. Cruel, cruel irony.