How Facebook likes are calculated • Hacker News Board

Re: How Facebook likes are calculated

#31

Post by dfox » Tue, Apr 12, 2011, 3:45 PM UTC

terryjsmith wrote: post #10

We noticed this when starting out company (which measures these stats for your blog), and it never struck me as odd. Sure it seems a little disingenuous at first, but the Like button has replaced the Share button as the preferred implementation. Moreover, every like, share, or comment gets posted to your wall for your friends to see (privacy settings depending) so you are in fact "recommending" it.

In Czech localization, the button actually says translation of "recommended", as do the message that gets on you wall by using it. On the other hand, comments, wallposts pages and what not use wording with equivalent of "like".

Re: How Facebook likes are calculated

#32

Post by monochromatic » Tue, Apr 12, 2011, 3:47 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #25

brendano wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fascinating! It would be great to have this information from just normal email -- the data's been there for many years -- but does it seem like privacy invasion then? There doesn't seem to be any difference...

My mail feels private, Facebook doesn't. A lot of people complained loudly when Google started scanning the text of emails to display "relevant" ads. My guess is, there will not be very many people complaining about this.

I suspect it only feels this way to you and me because we know better than to treat anything on Facebook as private, whereas email still feels like it at least should be.

But for my older relatives, and also for a lot of my friends on Facebook, I suspect there is no difference in their minds.

Re: How Facebook likes are calculated

#33

Post by BasDirks » Tue, Apr 12, 2011, 3:47 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #25

brendano wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fascinating! It would be great to have this information from just normal email -- the data's been there for many years -- but does it seem like privacy invasion then? There doesn't seem to be any difference...

My mail feels private, Facebook doesn't. A lot of people complained loudly when Google started scanning the text of emails to display "relevant" ads. My guess is, there will not be very many people complaining about this.

The mob only makes noise when shit hits the fan, the majority is either willfully ignorant or overly paranoid. Even among techs.

Re: How Facebook likes are calculated

#34

Post by biznickman » Tue, Apr 12, 2011, 3:55 PM UTC

I created a tool to calculate this over a year ago (http://www.allfacebook.com/facebook-like-count) ... this actually benefits the publisher in that the more likes, the more likely a user will like it. Not completely transparent, but it's a well known fact.

Re: How Facebook likes are calculated

#35

Post by theklub » Tue, Apr 12, 2011, 4:50 PM UTC

monochromatic wrote: post #22

ry0ohki wrote: post #14

The topic makes FB sound deceitful, but they don't hide this information, it says it right here: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like/ The number shown is the sum of: -The number of likes of this URL -The number of shares of this URL (this includes copy/pasting a link back to Facebook) -The number of likes and comments on stories on Facebook about this URL -The number of inbox messages containi…

> The number of inbox messages containing this URL as an attachment. I LOVE that they do this.

What if I'm mailing a friend because I don't like the item?