At any rate, clearly the social network has answered the public call for more ways for users to express themselves, which it is calling “Reactions”.
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Facebook has already tested the Reaction feature in a few markets like Spain and Ireland since past year and received positive feedback.
Social networking giant Facebook on Thursday launched extension of “like” button by adding emotions such as love, HaHa and Sad. The new feature was a result of user demands for greater expression instead of the plain “Like” button, which has been retained. Facebook also examined comments and the most-used stickers and emoticons to determine which reactions people use when commenting on posts.
Facebook said it hopes to learn how the different Reactions should be weighted differently by its News Feed to do a better job of showing everyone the stories they want to see. To do so, you simply have to press and hold the reactions button, select the emoticon you want and release.
Missing from this set of responses is a “dislike” button – an option CEO Mark Zuckerberg first hinted at in September. Scroll down to know more about Reaction Features of Facebook.
Julie Zhuo, Facebook’s product design director says people click on “like” more than a billion times a day, so “we didn’t want to make that any harder”. For example, if a friend puts up a heartfelt post about a breakup you can’t be angry and sad at the same time, even if that is the reality, you just have to pick one. Now posts that receive a lot of “wow” or “angry” Reactions will be bumped up too.
What do you think of the new “Reactions”? Give us your reaction in the comments.
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Facebook uses a complex formula to decide which posts show up more prominently in users’ newsfeed.
