20 April 2011

The Like Button as a Proxy for Consumer Opinion

Many people are looking at Facebook as if it is the second (or 3rd) coming. But when you get to the real metrics you have to strip away some of the hype.

Let me give you an example of the hype that I believe is detrimental to the objective analysis of the value of Facebook vs Google.

Check out the Aussie website devoted to advertising trade. Ad News.

The discussion revolved around the head of the IGN - The News Corp site for Gamers. Chambers is head of IGN. He stated this...

Chambers said the average number of Facebook friends per user globally was about 130. The Dead Island trailer, he said, generated about 150,000 “Likes” .

“So 150,000 times 130 is a big number [19.5 million] and that was the potential traffic that was delivered back to wherever it was viewed - most of it came back to IGN,” Chambers said. “It then opens up the question: is a ‘like’ more important than the [search] ‘link’?”

Asked if it was, Chambers said: “Personally, I would rather discover something from a social circle of people who know me rather than an algorithm that doesn’t.”

Now it is the last statement that gives me most pause for thought.

This is where the opengraph and the use of the like button really breaks down. Drawing the analogy that the Like Button = proxy for my social friends recommendations is FAR TOO SIMPLISTIC.

This bothers me greatly.

The like Button which we all know is often clicked in a Pavlovian response of an expectation of a Gimme type gift therefore is also being gamed.

So you have to decide how much do you think this is going to be relevant. Don't dismiss it but give its context.

Cheers

3 comments:

Charlie said...

The Like button is indeed being gamed and how that gaming affects the worth of the Like will be an algorythm all its own. Whats the diff? Great blog. I'll be back

Jeanny said...

Hi.. Awesome! I like your post.. I like your observation. The "Like" button is just another way of making comments.. but it doesn't have any sense since it doesn't speak the whole thought of the person commenting... How about removing that "like" button. But there's a campaign of wanting to have a "dislike" button. hhhmmmm....

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