Digest: Facebook has devised
a "sympathise" button as an alternative to the "like"
button for use in certain situations.
The problem is solved for when
you've seen something ... but can't 'like' it. Users have been demanding a “Dislike”
button for a long time. The social network evidently hears their complaints:
During a Facebook hackathon held "a little while back," an engineer
devised a "sympathize" button that would accompany gloomier status
updates, according to Dan Muriello, a different Facebook engineer who described
the hackathon experiment at a company event Thursday. If someone selected a
negative emotion like "sad" or "depressed" from Facebook's
fixed list of feelings, the "like" button would be relabeled
"sympathize."
How does Facebook’s sympathize button work?
It would work something like
this. When a user selects a negative emoticon such as “depressed” or “sad”, the
Like button would automatically be relabeled as “Sympathize.” However, it won’t
make its way to the site anytime soon, says Muriello. He said his fellow
engineers are enthusiastic about the creation, but it needs to undergo rigorous
analysis and testing before reaching the site.
