The like button is the engine of Facebook and its most recognized
symbol. A giant version of it adorns the entrance to the company’s
campus in Menlo Park, Calif.
Facebook’s 1.6 billion users click on it
more than 6 billion times a day—more frequently than people conduct
searches on Google—which affects billions of advertising dollars each
quarter. Brands, publishers, and individuals constantly, and
strategically, share the things they think will get the most likes.
But the button is also a blunt, clumsy tool. Someone announces her
divorce on the site, and friends grit their teeth and “like” it. There’s
a devastating earthquake in Nepal, and invariably a few overeager
clickers give it the ol’ thumbs-up.
Facebook will soon roll out a wider
range of reactions to posted items than "like."
Its users will be able to be
"angry" and "sad," or shout "yay" or
"wow" -- or simply "love" a comment, photo or video posted
on the social media site.
Facebook began testing the new
expressions, which it calls Reactions, last October in Chile, the Philippines,
Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Japan and Colombia.
The social media giant wants people
to share their thoughts more frequently and spend even longer periods on the
social network than they already do.
"We want people to share all of
the things that are meaningful to them, not just the things that are happy and
that people are going to like when they see them," Facebook CEO Mark
Zuckerberg said Wednesday, the same day the company reported a profit of $1.56
billion in the final three months of 2015, compared with $701 million in the
same period a year earlier.
Revenue in the quarter that ended
December 31 also rose to $5.84 billion from $3.85 billion during the same
period a year earlier.
Facebook's growth was fueled by its
online advertising growth, which targeted mobile users. Facebook has nearly 1.6
billion users, and of those, 1.4 billion use the service on mobile devices.
“If you’re an advertiser and you
want to reach mass scale, you only have two options: Facebook and Google,”
James Cakmak, an analyst at Monness Crespi Hardt & Co., told Bloomberg
Business News. “Facebook remains the fastest-growing platform for
advertiser spending, and as they open up new channels for users, that won’t
change.”
edited from Bloomberg, AFP and Reuters.
