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Ask HN: Why is there no 'like' button on Twitter?

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Re: Ask HN: Why is there no 'like' button on Twitter?

#51

Post by pat-mcnally »

A few of us have been interested in providing this feature on Twitter as part of more general effort in social sentiment (it's just a "is this anything?" project at this point). We see the similarity between 'Retweet' and 'Like' - however, we think the presence of a 'Dislike' would somewhat segregate what a 'Retweet' vs. a 'Like' is for.

You can see the most recent result of efforts in this 30 second YouTube video. It demonstrates where we are with a browser plugin to add 'Like' and 'Dislike' to every tweet viewed on Twitter.com: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlZVBCSXsK8

Would love to hear your thoughts on it.

The more underlying sentiment "gathering and storing" system can be found at: http://upprdwnr.com

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no 'like' button on Twitter?

#53

Post by notahacker »

kristiandupont wrote: post #17
sw1205 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes a dislike button is a must! I thought the star was me favouriting a tweet. I can see it but the person who's tweet is can't see that I have done that. I could be wrong though and like you say Facebook like is not for everyone anyway.

The dislike button has been suggested many times (and I think I have even seen fb groups demanding one). I think the reason they don't implement it is quite simple: it would damage the feel-good atmosphere. Imagine downvotes on new profile pictures or excited status updates.

Imagine if "Dislikes" exceeded "Likes" of a particular marketing campaign...

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no 'like' button on Twitter?

#54

Post by jamesk2 »

chopsueyar wrote: post #36

Why stop at Twitter? Why can't Hacker News have a like button for 'Ask HN' posts? I don't really want to upvote this post, nor write a text-based reply communicating my feelings. Instead, I want to push a 'Like' button. Conversely, why is there no 'Dislike' or 'Hate' button on Facebook?

Facebook has said that they don't want to put in features that would discourage participation. If someone updates their status and lots of people "dislike" it, they might not want to update their status next time.

For HN, I'd like to see a "track it" button - I don't want to upvote a lame article but often the HN community has a lot of interesting things to say so I'd like to keep track of those article's conversations.

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no 'like' button on Twitter?

#55

Post by henningninneh »

sw1205 wrote: post #12
mootothemax wrote: post #8

Twitter does have this functionality - it's called a ReTweet. Terminology differs, but it's essentially the same thing - both likes and retweets show up in the user's timelines, and both indicate liking what someone else has said.

If I like something in Facebook then only the person who's status it is sees that like. It does not appear in my stream to all my friends. If I RT something on Twitter then I am saying that I want all my followers to see this status. I don't want that, I just want to tell someone that I like their status without involving all my followers.

That is what the "fav" feature is for.

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no 'like' button on Twitter?

#56

Post by jdavid »

tomstuart wrote: post #22

A lot of people treat the favourite button (star) as "like". Unfortunately neither Twitter's web interface nor its API expose this data in a very useful way, so it only really has an effect if the like-ee is using a sufficiently thick native client or a third-party site like http://favstar.fm/ to keep track of who's faved their tweets.

i use the favorite star as a bookmark. i wish twitter had more gestures.

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no 'like' button on Twitter?

#57

Post by rmc »

brc wrote: post #46
rmc wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a technical point of view they are the same thing, both are short 'status' updates. However they are used in different ways, by different users for different things. People mostly use twitter as a 'microblog'. It's like a blog, but each 'blog post' is limited to be very small. People use Facebook status updates to tell people what they are doing and to tell their friends things. If I see your facebook updates, y…

I don't really agree with you as many of my friends feed their twitter to facebook - I assume there is some kind of app for this. Thus many facebook status updates are actually tweets. So many of the end users see tweets and status updates as the same thing. Facebook just needs to come up with a snappy verb for it.

Yes many of my friends feed their twitter straight to Facebook aswell. It's quite annoying to me. There is a Facebook app to do it. There's another facebook app that will only update your facebook if your tweet contains "#fb", which is a much better way

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no 'like' button on Twitter?

#58

Post by jmonegro »

klous wrote: post #32
jmonegro wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you know if you cared, if you didn't know about them? Besides, if there were a "like" button, it'd have the same effect since it would most likely show up in your timeline. A private "like" button? They have that as "favorite". Ultimately, the re-tweet makes it easier to discover new people within your network. If you're into design, and you're following other designers, chances are they're following other…

The favorite button in twitter isn't really private. All of your favorites are publicly viewable, by anyone. http://twitter.com/insert_twitter_name/favorites

True, but then again facebook's likes are not private either (nothing about facebook is, these days).
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