MerlinFX posted on April 22, 2010
10:58
We are playing around with the new Facebook 'Like' changes for our websites. At first I didn't like it, but I can see how integrating this feature will be a boon for business and organisations to have their content shared quickly and easily to the feeds across Facebook without the sharer necessarily being a Fan (now known as LIKE) of the entire Page). That is, you do not need to 'Like' a Page to share content with your friends. You can opt to 'Like' posts and this is shared in your stream only.
Liking a Page you will continue to get all updates from that Page - so nothing has changed there - Phew! Though it would seem that since FANS are no longer treated as Fans; the 'real fan' of a brand or business - that value just disappeared.
What differentiates me to a person who likes a Page vs someone who is a real Fan? Expect a lot of talk about this in the coming weeks as Facebook users come to grips with the changes and start to see 'Like' buttons all over the web on websites, news articles, photo sites etc.
I anticipate other social media platforms adopting this to include YouTube, Flickr etc. Makes sense to easily 'Like' other content across the web to share with friends. It will be kind of interesting if Twitter were to include this functionality. Would only help their user base. Would Facebook allow this?
Our clients' websites with 'Become a Fan' Badges will notice that this has changed to a Like button with the number of people 'liking' the page next to it.
I can feel an article coming on as well as new implementations for our solutions that already embrace social media integration. Stay tuned...
For those that want to hear from the man himself, Mark Zuckenburg; co-founder of Facebook:
For even more indepth news about all the news changes what the F8 Facebook Conference.