After years of users’ pleas seemingly falling on deaf ears, Facebook is officially — finally — building some kind of “Dislike” button.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed the plans for such a button during a Q&A session at the company’s headquarters Tuesday. The idea for such a new feature, which the social network plans to begin testing soon, has been shot down by Zuckerberg and other Facebook executives before. But moving beyond “Like” is key to growing Facebook’s ability to surface a wider variety of content people actually care about.
The centerpiece of the Facebook experience is the News Feed, the individualized stream of news articles, baby photos and old-fashioned status updates you see when you visit the social network’s website or app. Facebook uses an algorithm to curate the News Feed, because there’s simply too much content to show all of it in chronological order as it once did. Every time you visit the News Feed, Facebook’s algorithm kicks into gear, sorting all the available posts from your friends, brands you’ve liked and advertisers into order based on what it thinks you’ll find most interesting.
Top 10 Tech Product Designs of 2014
Nest
Acquired by Google in Jan. 2014, Nest Labs wants to turn your home into a smart device. The home automation system includes Internet-connected smoke detectors and thermostats, which have screens and chic, round designs — a huge design boost for devices that haven't really changed in recent decades. Aya Brackett—NestDJI Inspire 1
The latest DJI quadcopter retains the simple style that's made their drones so popular, but adds 4K video capability — and the ability to transmit the HD video wirelessly to an on-the-ground devices. A new ground-facing camera also allows Inspire 1 to fly steadily to keep the video footage clean.DJIiPhone 6 and 6 Plus
Bigger is better, or so the critics cried, calling for Apple to make a supersized phone. That was before Apple quieted them with the release of the iPhone 6 Plus in September, the company’s largest iPhone ever. With an alluring 5.5-inch display that makes it feel something like a portable iPad, the phone is is a challenge to Samsung’s larger models. Along with a powerful 8-megapixel camera and longer battery life, the phone is more a statement than an answer.AppleOsmo Tangram
Tired of seeing your kids staring at screens like zombies? This iPad game brings virtual play to life. A reflector equipped with artificial intelligence snaps over your iPad's camera and can sense when objects are moving (or being drawn) on a pad in front of it. Osmo comes with three games, all of which promote creativity and—because it’s best played in groups—social intelligence. The best way to understand how Osmo works is by watching the video of kids who have never played with the device before testing it out for the first time.OsmoTesla 2014 Model S
Tesla 2014 Model S has been praised both for its luxury feel and high-tech interior. The electric car offers instantaneous acceleration from a stop, a function very few other cars on the market provide. TeslaJawbone's UP3 Wristband
Depending on your view, Jawbone is on the road to making us all super fit athletes or brutally efficient cyborgs who operate by data alone. How many minutes of REM sleep did I get last night? What’s the difference between my heart rate while resting and during a workout? How hydrated am I? How many calories did I burn on my last run? Jawbone UP3 answers all those questions better than any other Jawbone did before. The $179 wearable fits on your wrist and comes in black and silver.JawboneSquare Stand
The iPad holder and credit card reader launched last year with the goal of transforming an iPad into a point-of-sale. The sleek, white stand also offers an enhanced credit card reader, and can be adapted to include a cash register.Square Nerf Rebelle Rapid Red Blaster
Last year, Nerf decided to even the battlefield and create a new line of guns, arrows and crossbows specifically for girls. The resulting Nerf Rebelle line takes a cue from the success of The Hunger Games: The box is covered with tweens styled like that series' hero, Katniss Everdeen.HasbroOculus Rift Crescent Bay
The latest Oculus Rift prototype, Crescent Bay, marks one step further before the commercial release of the virtual reality handset. Crescent Bay features upgrades like 360-degree head tracking, a lighter weight, and high-quality audio. Lucky participants in the demos recalled the mind-boggling immersion in the scenes they were watching. The consumer version, Oculus Rift, is expected to launch as early as April 2015.Oculus VRQualcomm WiPower
Sick of tangled phone charging cables? Qualcomm WiPower allows you to power up your phone without plugging it in — a function that, to most people, is basically magic. The wireless charging pad eliminates the fuss of power chords, while also allowing you to turn everyday furniture like tables and chairs into charging surfaces.Qualcomm
Facebook can’t read minds (yet), so the company can only guess as to which posts each user will care the most about. The News Feed algorithm takes into account thousands of factors to determine its ranking, ranging from how much you tend to watch video posts to how often a user has clicked through the poster’s profile pictures. A lot of it amounts to painstaking guesswork.
But clicking Like is different. It’s binary and unequivocal. You either Like something or you don’t. Therefore, it’s one of the biggest factors in News Feed’s secret sauce. Posts that attract lots of Likes from some users are placed higher up in other users’ feeds because it’s assumed they’ll attract even more engagement and Likes.
That works to some degree, but it doesn’t necessarily help Facebook meet its stated goal of “connecting the world.” After all, the 1.5 billion human beings using Facebook experience a variety of emotions besides “Like.” As the social network increasingly positions itself as a destination for news and thought-provoking conversations, “Like” grows ever more restrictive. Users don’t want to “Like” an article about the struggles of Syrian refugees or give a thumbs up when a friend shares that a loved one has died. Thus, Facebook’s algorithm might bury this type of essential content under traditional Internet catnip.
So “Dislike,” or whatever it winds up being called, could provide a counterbalance to that phenomenon, making it easier for users to signal interest in a post or story that would be awkward to “Like.” Though Zuckerberg didn’t explain exactly how a dislike button would work, it certainly won’t be framed as a way to hate on your cousin’s baby photos. Facebook already has tools that let people hide posts, people and ads that they don’t care about. “Dislike,” then, is about opening up an avenue for users to interact with interesting content that would be awkward to do anything with inside Facebook’s current framework.
“If you’re expressing something sad . . . it may not feel comfortable to ‘like’ that post, but your friends and people want to be able to express that they understand,” Zuckerberg said Tuesday.
So what will a Dislike button do to Facebook? It could become a sadder place, as less rosy content will be better able to compete with adorable pet photos and ice bucket challenges. But in the long term, showing users a wider variety of things they deeply care about will only keep them coming back to Facebook. “Dislike” is the way Facebook moves beyond being viewed as a distraction to a destination where people can truly find out about the most important things happening in their world. And that begets more users spending more time on the site, which begets more ads, which begets more dollars for Zuckerberg and Facebook’s shareholders.
“If people find things that they find meaningful and they learn from them,” News Feed Product Management Director Adam Mosseri told TIME in May, “then they’ll be more likely to stay with us in the long run.”
This Is What Your Facebook Profile Looked Like Over the Last 11 Years
The Original Facebook Group Page, 2004. Before people realized how awesome pictures are.Courtesy of FacebookFacebook Profile Page, 2005. Back when Facebook looked a little bit like MySpace. Courtesy of FacebookFacebook Profile Page Facelift, 2005. The "the" is finally dropped.Courtesy of FacebookFacebook Profile Page, 2006. You no longer need to be reminded "this is you" at the top of your profile page.Courtesy of FacebookFacebook Profile Page, 2007. Every profile update still had to begin with "is," forcing you to talk about yourself in the third person.
Courtesy of FacebookFacebook Profile Page, 2008. The wall.
Courtesy of FacebookFacebook Profile Page, 2009. It only took five years for Facebook to create easy-to-find privacy settings.
Courtesy of FacebookFacebook Profile Page, 2010. Facebook starts to get pretty.
Courtesy of FacebookFacebook Profile Page, 2011. Zuckerberg realizes that people love pictures, usually of animals.Courtesy of Facebook Facebook Profile Page, 2012. The timeline allows you (or your parents) to trace your life from birth to death.Courtesy of Facebook Facebook Profile Page, 2013-2014. Facebook introduced a new app, Paper, on Monday.Courtesy of Facebook Facebook Profile Page, 2014-2015. Facebook updated both the newsfeed algorithm and the privacy settings.Courtesy of Alex Fitzpatrick/Facebook
