The long-awaited reaction buttons introduced by the Facebook seem to have the hidden agenda claimed the sources. The Facebook team was working on this new feature for almost two years since people have been demanding for the ‘dislike ‘button and Mark Zuckerberg was not in favor of creating the ‘dislike’ button for various reasons. But after two years Facebook finally introduced the reaction buttons instead of dislike button, what is the reason behind that, let’s have a look at it here.
According to the report published in the Business Insider for years people have been waiting for the dislike button alongside the iconic Like button but it was predicted that it will never happen since the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg have answered it into the Q&A session “People have asked about the dislike button for many years,” he said, as quoted by Wired. “We’ve finally heard you and we’re working on this and we will deliver something that meets the needs of the larger community.”
Finally in the month of October 2015, the company announced the testing launch of the reaction buttons beside the Like button. It was the sequence of six emoji that were complementing the like button. “love,” “haha,” “yay,” “wow,” “sad,” and “angry.” And finally, on Wednesday 24th February Facebook rolled out the new buttons for their users worldwide. According to the sources at Facebook headquarters, the reaction buttons were the results of the feedbacks from the people. “It is the expression of feelings towards the contents displayed in the newsfeed and how you feel about it. “That’s why we have launched the reaction buttons as an extension of Like button by giving you more ways to express your feelings to the post,” said the sources.
[su_expand more_text=”READ MORE” less_text=” ” height=”0″ hide_less=”yes” link_style=”button” link_align=”center”] The new reaction buttons pop out next to the Like button as soon as you hold down the LIKE button (on your mobile device or Tablets) or you hover the mouse over it (if you are using the facebook on your desktop). The moment you tap on the emoji that you feel fit for that post the emoji appears just below the post next to the like button. According to the Facebook, new reactions are all about giving users new ways to communicate and express themselves. Users have long complained that like doesn’t feel appropriate in a lot of circumstances, such as when a friend’s loved one has died or an acquaintance posts a political screed that you find interesting but also troubling. But just like Facebook does everything for the dual purpose, here the second purpose is a collection of data. According to the sources, the Facebook will now be able to collect the data and make a profit from it. The bottom line here is Facebook is convinced that the key to its long-term success lies in gathering more and richer data on its user’s reaction to the posts they see in their feed. Based on the feedback the Facebook now will be able to personalize the user’s feed depending on his or her liking. This will also serve as cookies to place the ads on the feeds.
It is not the hidden fact that till date all of us been using the Like button as a data to show others as how many people like something that we publish but here the Facebook works differently when they see what is that you like the most, they will show you more of it. By giving users six reaction options means that Facebook can start to gather much more nuanced data on how users are reacting to any given post. It can begin to differentiate between posts that users are enjoying, posts they find fascinating, posts that make them happy, and posts that make them sad.
The Facebook claimed that they are not using the data from the reaction buttons that way yet, but the things will change soon according to them. Another speculation that keeps coming up is, the news feed algorithm may be used by the Facebook to show the mix of happy, sad, amazing and funny posts to keep users coming back to news feed every day. So people who come to Facebook looking to be amused would find their news feeds packed with funny posts. Those who come looking to be informed, challenged, or provoked would find their feeds peppered with news stories and controversial opinions.
According to the Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the reaction data could also be applied to the facebook’s advertising algorithms to keep understanding how people react to their ads. Reaction buttons, applied to Facebook’s massive audience, could amount to a valuable analytics tool for them and for Facebook, which places a high priority on showing its users ads that they find worthwhile.
Another thing that everyone wanted to know is, why only six emoji when there are so many emojis we use in our daily chat communications Facebook feels that having more options may lead to confusions in the selection of correct emotion while the six main emotions explain almost everything. There is no doubt that Facebook is making our lives more interesting by introducing the new ideas at the same time they have their own agenda of working on something they do.
Source: Various Sources
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