Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 58 posts

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

#21

Post by sw1205 »

justinxreese wrote: post #16

Why? Because Twitter is not Facebook. Why do they need to have the same features?

They don't. However Facebook felt the need to borrow Twitters @replies (http://mashable.com/2009/09/10/facebook-mentions/) so why can't Twitter borrow the Facebook like.

Yes they are different sites and yes they serve different purposes. However if functionality can work on both and can aid the users of that site then why should it not be introuced - just because you can already do it on one is not a good enough reason. If it was then you would not see competitors coming out daily with new sites that do what existing sites do but try and better it.

Twitter has millions of users who do not have a Facebook account and vice-versa. Providing they don't move too much from what makes them unique then giving their user base useful features can only be a good thing.

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

#22

Post by tomstuart »

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.

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

#23

Post by stuhacking »

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.

I think you're worrying too much about flooding your followers' timelines with spam. However, this is actually the point of twitter and I think it handles it pretty well.

Your followers probably follow you because your tweets are interesting to them. If you see something that you find interesting then chances are good that at least some of your followers will agree. Some followers may have seen it from the original source; others may only get it from your retweet.

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

#24

Post by gaius »

jmonegro wrote: post #19
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…

Why would you care what someone you've never met's having for breakfast? Unless they were a famous chef maybe.

Likes on FB don't show on the newsfeed, only the person whose thing you liked gets a notification.

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

#25

Post by lovskogen »

gaius wrote: post #24
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…

Why would you care what someone you've never met's having for breakfast? Unless they were a famous chef maybe. Likes on FB don't show on the newsfeed, only the person whose thing you liked gets a notification.

I only RT tweets related to my work, which is interactive design, gui, webdev . People following you that doesn't know you in person, probably follows you because of the stuff you do (work) not who you are (personal). This is proper use of RT, in my opinion.

Tagging a tweet as 'fav' doesn't show as clear as FBs like button. And it's more for saving good tweets, not sending 'I like this'.

Likes shouldn't come up in your timeline. This is Twitter, not FB. There is room for this functionality, but it's not there.

So for now, just @-reply and tell the persons in person, instead of a like-click. Gives more value.

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

#26

Post by jakevoytko »

Twitter and Facebook look at value in orthogonal directions.

On Facebook, the importance of every post is dictated by how much interaction it generates. This is very visible: comments and Likes are listed on every post. In a hurry, you can decide a post's value by how many people have already interacted. Liking a post keeps the interaction within the OP's profile page. By scrolling through someone's profile, you get a feel for how popular they are within the service.

On the other hand, the value of a Tweet is proportional to the number of people who see it. This is sometimes difficult to guess when inspecting the original tweet, since Twitter does not track old-style Retweets. It doesn't matter though, since your message is broadcast to dozens (or hundreds, or thousands) of people you didn't reach by yourself. The threshold of quality is a little higher with a Retweet: in a sense, you must be willing to say the original Tweet yourself. But a popular Tweet can reach more people than a good Facebook post.

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

#27

Post by bond »

Amazing, I've been thinking about it for the past few days and i feel it would be good to have a "like" button but maintained inside the twitter ecosystem.

With that we could build some kind of rating system to show the most liked or influential tweets around...

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

#28

Post by petervandijck »

I have the feeling Facebook's leadership is dramatically pragmatic: if it works, let's use it. They borrow ideas from lots of people, "like" came from friendfeed I believe? And Twitter's leadership seems more, how shall I say it, more interested in doing it "right" or taking the high road in terms of features. They have stayed extremely minimal for such a popular service, in terms of features.

They could add "like", which would surely add value, but then again they could also add a dozen other features that add value. But in doing that, they'd dilute their simple value proposition: real time updates.

Whether laser-focusing on 1 feature/value is smarter than adding other features and having a more complete offering is smart, only time will tell, I'm really not sure at this point.

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

#29

Post by sw1205 »

bond wrote: post #27

Amazing, I've been thinking about it for the past few days and i feel it would be good to have a "like" button but maintained inside the twitter ecosystem. With that we could build some kind of rating system to show the most liked or influential tweets around...

I totally agree. This could then lead itself to an improved likestream which could then take on Digg seriously.

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

#30

Post by sw1205 »

petervandijck wrote: post #28

I have the feeling Facebook's leadership is dramatically pragmatic: if it works, let's use it. They borrow ideas from lots of people, "like" came from friendfeed I believe? And Twitter's leadership seems more, how shall I say it, more interested in doing it "right" or taking the high road in terms of features. They have stayed extremely minimal for such a popular service, in terms of features. They could add "like",…

Really fair set of comments. At times Facebook can feel like one big bolt on and twitter have done well to avoid that. I just wondered why when a feature as big as Facebook Like could work on Twitter why (if it hasn't already been) it has not been considered.
Post reply on HN