A few weeks ago, Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook was finally looking into a “dislike” button – or at least something along those lines. Well now users in Ireland and Spain will be testing what they came up with – six emoticons to say one of the following – “Love,” “Haha,” “Yay,” “Wow,” “Sad” and “Angry.”
They are testing in Ireland and Spain – smaller markets – to get a feel of people’s reactions, usage, and what might still need to be changed. Various online sites have been asking for people’s reactions to the new options. Maybe not surprisingly there is a bit of sarcasm going on in comments, that’s bound to happen – you know sometimes it’s the cranky pants responding to these questions first.
When Zuckerman talked about this originally, he said they didn’t want to turn Facebook into a place where people were voting comments up or down – no Roman gladiator coliseum moments for FB. This is their answer to not having the yea or nay voting. But all sarcasm aside, these responses all seem kind of teenage girlish unless you add in some other options. Not that these are not good generic use emotions for everyone, but they leave out a few others that might actually see more use.
And they wouldn’t necessarily require hardcore designing either. What about a “Why” shown with a simple question mark. Or a “Smack” shown with a throbbing hand – for those times someone is just a bit too stupid for words. Or even one suggested on Twitter – a “Meh” for those times when you want to let people know you read their comment but have nothing to say about it.
Of course all of those things could be written in a comment, just as could the other new “reactions.” In fact, there are already emoji’s that cover these emotions readily available on Facebook, as they are on other social media platforms.
All due respect for the effort on Facebook’s part, and we get their need to keep the platform friendly, we don’t even disagree with that, but if you are going to offer something new – then give something new.
Not just a different way to post the same ideas that could already be easily expressed.
Ronn Torossian is the Founder and CEO of NYC based PR Firm 5W PR.
