Like button

Last updated

Example of a like button Like button.png
Example of a like button

A like button, like option, or recommend button is a feature in communication software such as social networking services, Internet forums, news websites and blogs where the user can express that they like, enjoy or support certain content. [1] Internet services that feature like buttons usually display the number of users who liked the content, and may show a full or partial list of them. This is a quantitative alternative to other methods of expressing reaction to content, like writing a reply text. Some websites also include a dislike button, so the user can either vote in favor, against or neutrally. Other websites include more complex web content voting systems; for example, five stars or reaction buttons to show a wider range of emotion to the content.

Contents

Implementations

Vimeo

Video sharing site Vimeo added a "like" button in November 2005. [2] Developer Andrew Pile describes it as an iteration of the "digg" button from the site Digg.com, saying "We liked the Digg concept, but we didn't want to call it 'Diggs,' so we came up with 'Likes'". [2]

FriendFeed

The like button on FriendFeed was announced as a feature on October 30, 2007, and was popularized within that community. [3] Later the feature was integrated into Facebook before FriendFeed was acquired by Facebook on August 10, 2009. [4]

Facebook

The "Like" icon used by Facebook Boton Me gusta.svg
The "Like" icon used by Facebook

The Facebook like button is designed as a hand giving "thumbs up". It was originally discussed to have been a star or a plus sign, and during development the feature was referred to as "awesome" instead of "like".[ citation needed ] It was introduced on 9 February 2009. [5] In February 2016, Facebook introduced reactions - a new way to express people's emotions to Facebook posts. These reactions include "Love", "Haha", "Wow", "Sad", and "Angry".

The like button is a significant power sharing tool, as one "like" will make the post show up on friends' feed, boosting the algorithm to ensure the post is seen and interacted with in order to continue the cycle of engagement. [6] On the other hand, a study highlights the disadvantage of the "like" reaction in algorithmic content ranking on Facebook. The "like" button can increase the engagement, but can decrease the organic reach as a "brake effect of viral reach". [7]

YouTube

The YouTube Like button "glows" every time a creator says "Smash that Like button." Youtube.like.button.glowing.png
The YouTube Like button "glows" every time a creator says "Smash that Like button."

In early 2010, as part of a broader redesign of the service, YouTube switched from a star-based rating system to Like/Dislike buttons. Under the previous system, users could rate videos on a scale from 1 to 5 stars; YouTube staff argued that this change reflected common usage of the system, as 2-, 3-, and 4-star ratings were not used as often. [8] [9] In 2012, YouTube briefly experimented with replacing the Like and Dislike buttons with a Google+ +1 button. [10]

In 2019, after the backlash from YouTube Rewind 2018, YouTube began considering options to combat "dislike mobs," including an option to completely remove the dislike button. [11] The video is the most disliked video on YouTube, passing the music video for Justin Bieber's "Baby".

On November 12, 2021, YouTube announced it will make dislike counts private, with only the content creator being able to view the number of dislikes on the back end, in what the company says is an effort to combat targeted dislike and harassment campaigns and encourage smaller content creators. [12]

On October 17, 2023, with an update on the website, views and likes will be updated periodically during the first 24 hours of a new video. Additionally, the Like button will "glow" when a creator asks their viewers to press the Like button. [13]

In addition to videos, each of their user comments also have its own set of Like and Dislike buttons since August 2007. [14] The feature was originally implemented in a similar fashion to Reddit's system of Upvotes and Downvotes until a greater redesign of the comment system in September 2013 (initially oriented on Google+), since which – while comments continue to show their Likes count – Dislikes won't be made public and thus have no visible effect on a comment's rating. [15] [16]

Google+

+1, the "Like" button of Google+ (old version) Google plus one (2012-2013).svg
+1, the "Like" button of Google+ (old version)

Google+ had a like button called the +1 (Internet jargon for "I like that" or "I agree"), which was introduced in June 2011. [17] In August 2011, the +1 button also became a share icon. [18]

Reddit

On Reddit (a system of message boards), users can upvote and downvote posts (and comments on posts). The votes contribute to posters' and commenters' "karma" (Reddit's name for a user's overall rating). [19]

X

2007 X (then called Twitter) post with a star icon to the right as its "favorite" button My first tweet! (3344952812).png
2007 X (then called Twitter) post with a star icon to the right as its "favorite" button

Alongside reposts, X (formerly Twitter) users can like posts made on the service, indicated by a heart. Until November 2015, the equivalent of "liking a post" was "favoriting a post" and favorites were symbolized by a gold star ( FA star.svg ). However, that was changed to alleviate user confusion and put the function more in line with other social networks, the favorite function was renamed to like. [20]

Previously users were able users to see which posts others have liked under a likes tab in a user's profile. Though in June 2024 this feature was removed across the site thus making likes private for all users. [21]

In July 2024 it was reported that a "dislike" button featuring a broken heart icon was being tested as a addition to the site. [22]

VK

VK like buttons for posts, comments, media and external sites operate in a different way from Facebook. Liked content doesn't get automatically pushed to the user's wall, but is saved in the (private) Favorites section instead.

Instagram

The Instagram like button is indicated by a heart symbol. In addition to tapping the heart symbol on a post, users can double tap an image to "like" it. In May 2019, Instagram began tests wherein the number of likes on a user's post is hidden from other users. [23]

TikTok

The TikTok like button is indicated by a heart symbol, and users can use the like button by double tapping on a post they like, similar to YT Shorts and Instagram. Liked content can be accessed via the "Liked" tab on a user's profile.

Additionally in 2022, TikTok implemented a Dislike button for their user comments with the intent of giving their users power to identify comments that are considered "irrelevant or inappropriate". Just like on YouTube ever since the late 2013 overhaul of their comment system, these dislikes are not visible to others. [24] [25]

XWiki

XWiki, the application wiki and open source collaborative platform, added the "Like" button in version 12.7. This button allows users to like wiki pages. It is possible to see all liked pages and the Like counter for each page.

LinkedIn

The business and employment social media LinkedIn includes a "like" button. In 2019 the platform added reaction options such as "celebrate", "love", "insightful" and "support". [26] [27]

In 2012, following the death of Indian political leader Bal Thackeray, two women were arrested related to a Facebook post about the death. One of the women posted the status update, and her friend had liked it. [28] The arrest under sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology Act caused a national outrage against freedom of speech and misuse of the Information Technology laws. [29] After an enquiry that concluded that the arrests were avoidable and not justified, and recommended action against the arresting policemen, [30] the allegations were dropped, the police officers suspended, and the magistrate involved in the case was transferred. [31]

In 2017, a man was fined 4,000 Swiss francs by a Swiss regional court for liking defamatory messages on Facebook written by other people which criticized an activist. According to the court, the defendant "clearly endorsed the unseemly content and made it his own". [32]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">StumbleUpon</span> Discovery and advertisement engine

StumbleUpon was a website, browser extension, toolbar, and mobile app with a "Stumble!" button that, when pushed, opened a semi-random website or video that matched the user's interests, similar to a random web search engine. Users were able to filter results by type of content and were able to discuss such webpages via virtual communities and to rate such webpages via like buttons. StumbleUpon was shut down in June 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">YouTube</span> Video-sharing and social media platform

YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim, three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States, it is the second-most visited website in the world, after Google Search. In January 2024, YouTube had more than 2.7 billion monthly active users, who collectively watched more than one billion hours of videos every day. As of May 2019, videos were being uploaded to the platform at a rate of more than 500 hours of content per minute, and as of 2023, there were approximately 14 billion videos in total.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reddit</span> American social news and discussion site

Reddit is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and forum social network. Registered users submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images, and videos, which are then voted up or down by other members. Posts are organized by subject into user-created boards called "subreddits". Submissions with more upvotes appear towards the top of their subreddit and, if they receive enough upvotes, ultimately on the site's front page. Reddit administrators moderate the communities. Moderation is also conducted by community-specific moderators, who are unpaid volunteers. It is operated by Reddit, Inc., based in San Francisco.

A social news website is a website that features user-posted stories. Such stories are ranked based on popularity, as voted on by other users of the site or by website administrators. Users typically comment online on the news posts and these comments may also be ranked in popularity. Since their emergence with the birth of Web 2.0, social news sites have been used to link many types of information, including news, humor, support, and discussion. All such websites allow the users to submit content and each site differs in how the content is moderated. On the Slashdot and Fark websites, administrators decide which articles are selected for the front page. On Reddit and Digg, the articles that get the most votes from the community of users will make it to the front page. Many social news websites also feature an online comment system, where users discuss the issues raised in an article. Some of these sites have also applied their voting system to the comments, so that the most popular comments are displayed first. Some social news websites also have a social networking service, in that users can set up a user profile and follow other users' online activity on the website.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digg</span> Social media/news aggregator website

Digg is an American news aggregator with a curated front page, aiming to select articles specifically for the Internet audience such as science, trending political issues, and viral Internet issues. It was launched in its current form on July 31, 2012, with support for sharing content to other social platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of YouTube</span>

YouTube is an American online video-sharing platform headquartered in San Bruno, California, founded by three former PayPal employees—Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim—in February 2005. Google bought the site in November 2006 for US$1.65 billion, since which it operates as one of Google's subsidiaries.

Social network advertising, also known as social media targeting, is a group of terms used to describe forms of online advertising and digital marketing that focus on social networking services. A significant aspect of this type of advertising is that advertisers can take advantage of users' demographic information, psychographics, and other data points to target their ads.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hacker News</span> Social news website

Hacker News (HN) is a social news website focusing on computer science and entrepreneurship. It is run by the investment fund and startup incubator Y Combinator. In general, content that can be submitted is defined as "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."

Google Sidewiki was a web annotation tool from Google, launched in September 2009 and discontinued in December 2011. Sidewiki was a browser extension that allowed anyone logged into a Google Account to make and view comments about a given website in a sidebar. Despite the name, the tool was not a collaborative wiki, though the comments were editable by the author.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Imgur</span> American online image hosting service

Imgur is an American online image sharing and image hosting service with a focus on social gossip that was founded by Alan Schaaf in 2009. The service has hosted viral images and memes, particularly those posted on Reddit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Instagram</span> Social media platform owned by Meta Platforms

Instagram is an American photo and video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters, be organized by hashtags, and be associated with a location via geographical tagging. Posts can be shared publicly or with preapproved followers. Users can browse other users' content by tags and locations, view trending content, like photos, and follow other users to add their content to a personal feed. A Meta-operated image-centric social media platform, it is available on iOS, Android, Windows 10, and the web. Users can take photos and edit them using built-in filters and other tools, then share them on other social media platforms like Facebook. It supports 32 languages including English, Hindi, Spanish, French, Korean, and Japanese.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Google+</span> Defunct social network by Google

Google+ was a social network that was owned and operated by Google until it ceased operations in 2019. The network was launched on June 28, 2011, in an attempt to challenge other social networks, linking other Google products like Google Drive, Blogger and YouTube. The service, Google's fourth foray into social networking, experienced strong growth in its initial years, although usage statistics varied, depending on how the service was defined. Three Google executives oversaw the service, which underwent substantial changes that led to a redesign in November 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chime.in</span>

Chime.in was a social networking service and Web site launched in October 2011, operated and privately owned by UberMedia. Unlike most social networks, Chime.in is organized around subjects instead of people. The website is designed as a place to learn and share with other people who have similar interests. Chime.in lets users share content with others through a number of different mediums. It has a newsfeed, profile pages and a system for following other users.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">We Heart It</span> Social networking site

We Heart It was an image-based social network. We Heart It describes itself as "A home for your inspiration" and a place to "Organize and share the things you love." Users could collect their favorite images to share with friends and organize into collections. Users can access the site through We Heart It's iOS and Android mobile apps.

Anonymous social media is a subcategory of social media wherein the main social function is to share and interact around content and information anonymously on mobile and web-based platforms. Another key aspect of anonymous social media is that content or information posted is not connected with particular online identities or profiles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Facebook like button</span> Feature of the social networking website Facebook

The like button on the social networking website Facebook was first enabled on February 9, 2009. The like button enables users to easily interact with status updates, comments, photos and videos, links shared by friends, and advertisements. Once clicked by a user, the designated content appears in the News Feeds of that user's friends, and the button also displays the number of other users who have liked the content, including a full or partial list of those users. The like button was extended to comments in June 2010. After extensive testing and years of questions from the public about whether it had an intention to incorporate a "Dislike" button, Facebook officially rolled out "Reactions" to users worldwide on February 24, 2016, letting users long-press on the like button for an option to use one of five pre-defined emotions, including "Love", "Haha", "Wow", "Sad", or "Angry". Reactions were also extended to comments in May 2017, and had a major graphical overhaul in April 2019.

Vidme was a video hosting service that launched to the public in 2014. It described itself as a hybrid between video hosting website YouTube and social news site Reddit. It shut down in 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Feed (Facebook)</span> Feature of the social network Facebook

Facebook's Feed, formerly known as the News Feed, is a web feed feature for the social network. The feed is the primary system through which users are exposed to content posted on the network. Feed highlights information that includes profile changes, upcoming events, and birthdays, among other updates. Using a proprietary method, Facebook selects a handful of updates to show users every time they visit their feed, out of an average of 2,000 updates they can potentially receive. Over two billion people use Facebook every month, making the network's Feed the most viewed and most influential aspect of the news industry. The feature, introduced in 2006, was renamed "Feed" in 2022.

Facebook Stories are short user-generated photo or video collections that can be uploaded to the user's Facebook. Facebook Stories were created on March 28, 2017. They are considered a second news feed for the social media website. It is focused around Facebook's in-app camera which allows users to add fun filters and Snapchat-like lenses to their content as well as add visual geolocation tags to their photos and videos. The content is able to be posted publicly on the Facebook app for only 24 hours or can be sent as a direct message to a Facebook friend.

References

  1. ↑ Dedić, N. and Stanier, C. (2017) "Towards Differentiating Business Intelligence, Big Data, Data Analytics and Knowledge Discovery". Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing (LNBIP). Springer International Publishing. Volume 285.
  2. 1 2 "How Vimeo became hipster YouTube". Fortune. 23 February 2011. Retrieved 1 December 2021.
  3. ↑ Taylor, Bret (30 October 2007). "I like it, I like it". FriendFeed Blog . Retrieved 21 October 2014.
  4. ↑ Kincaid, Jason (10 August 2009). "Facebook Acquires FriendFeed (Updated)". TechCrunch . Retrieved 21 October 2014.
  5. ↑ Kincaid, Jason (9 February 2009). "Facebook Activates "Like" Button; FriendFeed Tires Of Sincere Flattery". TechCrunch . Retrieved 30 January 2014.
  6. ↑ Ozanne, Marie; Cueva Navas, Ana; Mattila, Anna S.; Van Hoof, Hubert B. (1 April 2017). "An Investigation Into Facebook "Liking" Behavior An Exploratory Study". Social Media + Society. 3 (2): 2056305117706785. doi: 10.1177/2056305117706785 . ISSN   2056-3051.
  7. ↑ Pócs, Dávid; Adamovits, Otília; Watti, Jezdancher; Kovács, Róbert; Kelemen, Oguz (21 June 2021). "Facebook Users' Interactions, Organic Reach, and Engagement in a Smoking Cessation Intervention: Content Analysis". Journal of Medical Internet Research. 23 (6): e27853. doi: 10.2196/27853 . ISSN   1438-8871. PMC   8277334 . PMID   34152280.
  8. ↑ Lowensohn, Josh (31 March 2010). "YouTube's big redesign goes live to everyone". CNET. Retrieved 9 November 2015.
  9. ↑ Siegler, M.G. (22 September 2009). "YouTube Comes To A 5-Star Realization: Its Ratings Are Useless". TechCrunch. Retrieved 9 November 2015.
  10. ↑ "Google+ replacing ability to dislike a YouTube video?". Geek.com. Archived from the original on 18 November 2018. Retrieved 9 November 2015.
  11. ↑ Best, Shivali (5 February 2019). "YouTube might remove its dislike button to combat 'dislike mobs'". mirror. Retrieved 18 February 2019.
  12. ↑ Perez, Sarah (12 November 2021). "YouTube is removing the dislike count on all videos across its platform". TechCrunch. Retrieved 12 November 2021.
  13. ↑ "From your phone to the TV, get a taste of the latest YouTube updates". blog.youtube. Retrieved 28 August 2024.
  14. ↑ "Site Update 8/22". YouTube Blog. 24 August 2007. Retrieved 31 May 2024.
  15. ↑ Janakiram, Nundu; Zunger, Yonatan (24 September 2013). "We hear you: Better commenting coming to YouTube". YouTube Blog. Retrieved 31 May 2024.
  16. ↑ "The Curious Case of the YouTube Comment Dislike Button". YouTube. 31 March 2019. Retrieved 31 May 2024.
  17. ↑ Siegler, M.G. (31 May 2011). "Whoops Redux: Looks Like Partner Just Leaked Google's +1 Button For Websites Launch". TechCrunch . Retrieved 14 February 2015.
  18. ↑ Newman, Jared (24 August 2011). "Google +1 Now Links to Google+ Profiles: Let the War on Facebook's 'Like' Button Begin". PC World . Retrieved 14 February 2015.
  19. ↑ "Yes, Reddit's r/The_Donald was infiltrated by anti-Clinton Russian trolls". Newsweek . 11 April 2018. Retrieved 25 October 2018.
  20. ↑ "Twitter officially kills off favorites and replaces them with likes". The Verge. Vox Media. Retrieved 4 November 2015.
  21. ↑ https://www.npr.org/2024/06/13/nx-s1-5004515/x-likes-hide-users-elon-musk [ bare URL ]
  22. ↑ Perez, Sarah (11 July 2024). "X is building a 'dislike' button for downvoting replies". TechCrunch. Retrieved 24 August 2024.
  23. ↑ Padilla, Mariel (18 July 2019). "Instagram is Hiding Likes. Will That Reduce Anxiety?". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 26 November 2020. Retrieved 5 May 2021.
  24. ↑ Cabello, Marcos (23 September 2022). "Don't Like a Comment on TikTok? You Can Hit the 'Dislike' Button". CNET. Retrieved 31 May 2024.
  25. ↑ Malik, Aisha (23 September 2022). "TikTok is releasing its comment dislike button to all users worldwide". TechCrunch. Retrieved 31 May 2024.
  26. ↑ Leonard, Jay (25 April 2019). "LinkedIn Rolling Out Reaction Buttons". Business 2 Community. Retrieved 28 March 2023.
  27. ↑ Hutchinson, Andrew (17 June 2022). "LinkedIn Launches Initial Rollout of its New 'Funny' Reaction". SocialMediaToday. Retrieved 27 March 2023.
  28. ↑ Kaphle, Anup (19 November 2012). "Who was Bal Thackeray and why did Mumbai come to a standstill this weekend?". The Washington Post. ISSN   0190-8286. Archived from the original on 23 February 2016. Retrieved 7 February 2016.
  29. ↑ Kukil Bora (20 November 2012). "Arrest For Facebook 'Like' In India Creates Controversy; Is It An Onslaught On Internet Speech?". ibtimes.com. Retrieved 8 May 2024.
  30. ↑ Samira Shaikh (24 November 2012). "Facebook arrest: The girls were arrested for their own 'protection', report quotes policemen saying". ndtv.com. Retrieved 8 May 2024.
  31. ↑ "Charges dropped against Palghar girls arrested for Facebook post on Bal Thackeray". indiatoday.in. 19 December 2012. Retrieved 8 May 2024.
  32. ↑ Man fined by Swiss court for 'liking' defamatory comments on Facebook - The Guardian / AFP, 20 May 2017
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.