LIKE

When the world was first introduced to the internet in the 1990s, the World Wide Web felt like the Wild Wild West. Everything was new and there were so few established rules and norms that the virtual space was being defined in real time. As the technology matured and it emerged as a platform that everyone would use in their daily lives, much of the experience of being online began to standardize. Now, there are many means of interacting with information on the Web that, frankly, seem not just commonplace but expected, as if this is how things were always meant to be. Arguably one example of this is the Like Button.

Everyone is familiar with the Like Button, which in its most popular iteration is often associated with Facebook (the visual design for which was developed by Aaron Sittig). More broadly, everyone is now accustomed to doing something online akin to “liking”. But how did the Like Button come to be, and what are the implications of all this liking taking place on the Web? This is the subject of the Like: The Button that Changed the World from authors Martin Reeves and Bob Goodson.

In could be argued that it doesn’t exactly make sense to inquire into the provenance of the Like Button because it’s one of those technologies that sort of just happened. To the extent that it happened, though, it’s often assumed that it was invented at Facebook. But as Reeves and Goodson point out, this is not entirely accurate. As recounted in the book it was Yelp that likely set about developing the proto-Like button, the company looking for a technologically feasible way to encourage user interaction with the site that provided meaningful feedback without adding unnecessary strain to the servers (Goodson should know a thing or two about this personally, as he was involved with Yelp at the time). Once rolled out, other sites began their own take on Yelp’s innovation. While Facebook also began to experiment with one, founder Mark Zuckerberg started out lukewarm to the idea, and in fact another social media site, FriendFeed, came out with their version ahead (though, in an unrelated turn of events, the site would eventually be acquired by Facebook).

Looked at in this way, there is no single origin story for the Like Button. Nor was there anything resembling a race to develop one. It turns out the Like Button was just one of those things that sites on the social web were trying to develop as a matter of course until each found what worked for them. Indeed, it took Facebook the better part of three years to roll out the version with which we’re now all familiar!

While there’s nothing exciting or scandalous about the how the Like Button came to be, the effects it has had on the social web and thereby on our lives has been nothing short of transformative.

It might seem like an inconsequential action, but in reality each time we click the Like Button or its many equivalents we’re creating data and information that can be used in a myriad of ways. At the very least, it prompts an algorithm somewhere that we might like other things that are similar, and thereafter are shown precisely those similar things. That information gleaned from our “Like” can also be used by third parties to assess whether their messages are effective (as in an ad campaign) or whether they still have our attention (as in a political campaign). Trends based on our likes have given rise to that strangest of grifts known as the online influencer, the best of whom know how to use the data behind the likes from their shares/posts/follows to build and maintain an audience. All this just because we sometimes click “Like” online.

Reeves and Goodson do well to explore the intricacies and adjacencies of online liking. Read their book and you will likely never look at the Like Button in the same way again.