If you haven’t notice the new functionality of the Facebook “Like” Button, it now does the same thing the Share did. It’s about time and I think many users will like this new function a lot better, I know I will. In the past you had two options on Facebook – like it or share it, but now if you like something it will post a blurb and thumbnail to your wall. I think this makes it a lot easier and also better for the social junkies in us.
In other words, the Like button will now be function the same way as the Facebook Share button. This will definitely get more people’s attention over the old way. Hitting the Like button before the change usually would go unnoticed.
Facebook Spokeswoman Malorie Lucich told Mashable that the Like button is the “recommended solution moving forward,” but called the new changes a “test” to gauge reaction from users and developers. Unlike some of Facebook’s prior experiments, we don’t see foresee this one causing any major revolts.
Lucich told Mashable that the latest change is only a test, but the site was quick to point out that test features on the social network are normally rolled out to a few users before going site-wide. That’s not the case with this tweak.
One of our authors – Nikola Ranguelov pointed out an excellent observation or at least a concern. How will the Like button determine what thumbnail to use? The Share feature provides the user with a choice of what thumbnail they would like to use with the content they’re sharing. If there’s no way of doing this, than there will be many irrelevant thumbnails associated with the new Like button functionality.
Check out this article – http://www.techi.com/2011/02/why-the-facebook-like-button-change-is-a-bait-and-switch/
I like it and I will use it a lot more often!
I want a combined “like” and “share” button that always gives me the *choice* to share, not a combined “share” and “like” button that always shares.
Besides, automatically generated thumbnails suck. They’re one hallmark of automatically generated spam.
Elizabeth,
I am not liking the way it selects the thumbnail. The ones I noticed weren’t relevant with the content. They need to fix this fast.
I don’t think it can be fixed by software alone. Even if FaceBook did have an easy-peasy page-by-page way for web site owners to control which thumbnail was chosen automatically, not all sites will bother and real humans will want to have choices.
I like programming that spares me from repetitious tasks and helps me get the job done. I don’t want to wrestle with programming that contradicts me while it tries to think for me. (Yes, I am straying a bit into Google’s “did you mean” searches. Bah.)
I like this new feature of Facebook Like button. Now I can thoroughly get to know what my friends are doing in FB world and of course they too can see my activities quiet easily.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who is not a fan of the thumbnails chosen. I liked a photo blog post and, instead of grabbing the main image from the post, it picked a gravatar image from the comments. Fail!
So both things will do the same job. Then should i use both buttons (like and share) on my blog or only one? Suggest me.
Rakesh,
I am only using the share so that people will have a choice on what thumbnail to use.