One of my favorite functions on Friendfeed is the “like” feature. The higher “likes” an item gets, the more attention it gets from the community. Think of likes as a reward system. The Friendfeed tech savvy crowd instantly recognizes quality and rewards the content authors and distributors with likes. Having a bigger subscriber base helps. This will dramatically increase the amount of likes on an item. Let’s not forget the swarms of FOAF’S (friend of a friends) that will follow the queen bee. The ultimate reward for having a large number of likes on your content , is to be listed with the creme de la creme on the “best of Friendfeed.” This page highlights the best liked content from the past day, week, or month according to the people you’re subscribed to. The like system on Friendfeed allows one to get instant social gratification.
Today I started a discussion on Friendfeed. I asked my fellow Friendfeeders a simple question, classify the type of liker you are. The responses varied and were very interesting. Among some of the reasons why I like content are to show support to the author or content distributors. Then there are topics that hit home and bring out emotion. I also like content as a substitute to commenting. A lot of time I am too busy or tired to leave a thoughtful comment, therefore a silent comment, by liking, still gives your seal of approval.
I decided to classify some of the types of likers on Friendfeed.
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- The Super Liker - Is a person who has a huge following and influence on Friendfeed i.e Robert Scoble. Whatever they like usually turns to gold.
- The Active Liker – Is a person who is really active on the site – They frequently take part on the site by sharing, posting, and commenting, and are an integral part of the process.
- The Average Liker – Is a person who use’s the site recreationally, just to pass time whether screwing around at work or school to kill spare time. They typically do not submit or share a lot of content. They instead use the site for their own entertainment. Once in a while, the they might comment and get involved on something they are passionate about. Mainly they pretty much go about their business, adding friends now and again and checking in a few times per week.
- The Selective Liker – This is a person who is as selective with his likes, as a sommelier is with his wine.
- Supportive Liker – This is a person who always supports quality content. They fearlessly standby their network of friends. These likers bring a special trait to the game, it’s called loyalty.
- The Random Liker – Is a person who randomly likes any type of content. They are usually non-discriminatory.
- The like it likes it’s hot Liker – Is a person who strikes only when the content or a topic is hot…
- The like to go back to it later Liker – Is a person who use’s likes as a bookmarking system.
Coincidentally on Friendfeed, Julian Baldwin started this thread, which brings us to the last type of liker on the list I coined a “Drive by liker”
Quoted from Julian
“ When you’ve liked every f*ckin piece of media that flows through FF then you’re not participating – that requires true assessment “
What type of liker are you?
Related reads:
FriendFeed ‘Likes’ Compatibility Index
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That is too funny, thanks Mike. I like this type of analysis about the community, as I know these ideas will get refined as more observations are made and the social dynamics of FriendFeed become more clear. Great Post!
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Well, difficult to tell. I'm probably a selective liker, although all kinds seem to apply to me sometimes.
I don't want to be a know-it-all but did you use the abbreviation FOAF intentionally? It's a standard to describe friends semantically (see http://www.foaf-project.org/), so using it in this context could lead to confusion.
Solid piece Mike. Keep it up!
Well, difficult to tell. I’m probably a selective liker, although all kinds seem to apply to me sometimes.
I don’t want to be a know-it-all but did you use the abbreviation FOAF intentionally? It’s a standard to describe friends semantically (see http://www.foaf-project.org/), so using it in this context could lead to confusion.
Solid piece Mike. Keep it up!
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