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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?

#11

Post by rmc »

sw1205 wrote: post #6
RBerenguel wrote: post #5

Probably no. Twitter is good as it is: a mean of comunication

The Facebook Status and the Twitter status are fundamentally the same thing. You are telling the world what is on your mind. The like functionality in Facebook is a means of communication - someone clicks like and says I like your opinion on this, your good news, your joke, the fact you are in a good mood. Now if Twitter has the same status functionality could 'like' not be equally effective?

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, you can see mine. Twitter is not like that. Facebook is for socializing, twitter is like newspapers. They are different, ergo it doesn't make sense to make them identical

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

#12

Post by sw1205 »

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.

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

#13

Post by sw1205 »

adrianoconnor wrote: post #9

What about the little 'favourite star'? Surely that achieves the exact same thing ultimately?. I think, but I can't remember for sure, that the number of times a tweet has been favourited is returned by the api, so clients could show it if they wanted. FWIW, I do not personally like the 'Like' button in Facebook at all. The most banal things get 'liked' which totally devalues it. A 'Does not like' button would have b…

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.

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

#15

Post by [deleted] »

rick_2047 wrote: post #10

I don't understand your line of thinking. I agree that facebook status and twitter are essentially the same thing (and the same level of useless), but if you like one particular feature of one site why not just use that site and not the other site. If twitter keeps on replicating the same things fb does then why do we have two different websites.

[deleted]

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

#17

Post by kristiandupont »

sw1205 wrote: post #13
adrianoconnor wrote: post #9

What about the little 'favourite star'? Surely that achieves the exact same thing ultimately?. I think, but I can't remember for sure, that the number of times a tweet has been favourited is returned by the api, so clients could show it if they wanted. FWIW, I do not personally like the 'Like' button in Facebook at all. The most banal things get 'liked' which totally devalues it. A 'Does not like' button would have b…

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.

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

#18

Post by abiczo »

adrianoconnor wrote: post #9

What about the little 'favourite star'? Surely that achieves the exact same thing ultimately?. I think, but I can't remember for sure, that the number of times a tweet has been favourited is returned by the api, so clients could show it if they wanted. FWIW, I do not personally like the 'Like' button in Facebook at all. The most banal things get 'liked' which totally devalues it. A 'Does not like' button would have b…

What about the little 'favourite star'? Surely that achieves the exact same thing ultimately?

The favorite button in it's current form is more like a bookmark button in my opinion. What's missing is that can't see who favorited a tweet.

In our (web-based) client we implemented this missing funcionality, renamed the button to "Like" and it works pretty well, it's being used a lot.

I think, but I can't remember for sure, that the number of times a tweet has been favourited is returned by the api, so clients could show it if they wanted.

No, it's not returned unfortunately.

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

#19

Post by jmonegro »

gaius wrote: post #7

The twitter analogue is the "re-tweet" which IMHO is pretty obnoxious; your stream gets clogged with your friends RT'ing things about people you've a) never heard of and b) if you had and you cared, you'd just follow them yourself. Twitter at scale is a one-way "write only" medium.

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 great designers, and you can find about these other people through the re-tweet.

I'd say it's an (accidental) feature that was very important for twitter's success, and it's further validated by the fact that the re-tweet was brought upon by the users themselves.

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

#20

Post by lsc »

gaius wrote: post #7

The twitter analogue is the "re-tweet" which IMHO is pretty obnoxious; your stream gets clogged with your friends RT'ing things about people you've a) never heard of and b) if you had and you cared, you'd just follow them yourself. Twitter at scale is a one-way "write only" medium.

>Twitter at scale is a "write only" medium.

only because the 'older tweets are currently unavailable' message when you search for stuff. Usually the search isn't completely broken; you get the last page of stuff you are searching for.

either way, search is the only sane way to use twitter... otherwise it's like the facebook wall- impossible to keep up with and full of crap.

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