Reactions Coming Soon to Facebook as Like Button Alternative

Posted on January 27, 2016

The "Like" button is one of the features that helped Facebook become popular. There have been complaints that the universal Like button is not very useful when it comes to upsetting topics like a death, illness, terrorist attack or divorce. It feels wrong giving these types of events a "thumbs up." This is one of the reasons Facebook has been busy coming up with an alternative.

There are going to several options when it comes to liking a post. These will include Love, Haha, Wow, Sad and Angry. The regular old Like option is expected to remain available. The reactions were launched in a pilot test last October.

Chris Cox, the Chief Product Officer at Facebook, said in his post, "We studied which comments and reactions are most commonly and universally expressed across Facebook, then worked to design an experience around them that was elegant and fun. Starting today Ireland and Spain can start loving, wow-ing, or expressing sympathy to posts on Facebook by hovering or long-pressing the Like button wherever they see it. We'll use the feedback from this to improve the feature and hope to roll it out to everyone soon."

Three months later and reactions are now expected to be available soon to Facebook users. Bloomberg reports that the reactions will be coming with in the next few weeks. Cox says the biggest test for the new Like options came during the November terrorist attacks in Paris. He told Bloomberg, "It just felt different to use Facebook that day."

Bloomberg also says that the "Yay" reaction was rejected and it will not be available. Cox says that it was "not universally understood" like the others.

Twitter recently changed its Favorite feature to a "Like" feature. It will be interesting to see if Twitter ultimately goes with a broader Liking feature as well.