I'm not trying to knock innovation where it lives, but calling Facebook the most innovative company on the web, and then announcing how hugely successful the LIKE-BUTTON already is, is… Well, a bit self-serving both for Facebook and the Social Media Media (SMM) that covers such new and powerful technologies. [If you are detecting sarcasm, I'm sorry, it was intentional.]

So let's look at just how innovative and powerful the new F-Like button is. I like to call it the F-in Like button, but that's just because I have my tongue firmly planted in cheek every time I see it. I keep wanting to ask, "But do you really f-in like it?"

So tonight on Read Write Web I used the button and here's what it looks like.

Wow, "be the first of your friends" is too enticing for words. So let's click this sucker and see what magic happens.

So immediately RWW gets a nice promo on my Facebook page.

With two handy backlinks. (Hmmm… is this about backlinking strategies to up site's SEO value to Google. Really?) One back link to the article I was so enthusiastic about and another to ReadWriteWeb's site. Helpful, unassuming. And another blip on my wall of social media miasma. [The second time I've used this word in a week. Probably not correctly this time, but just for fun. JFF!]

And then back on RWW's site my click has changed the button there as well.

Well, that looks pretty cool to me. BUT… do you think I could see the other 6 folks who liked it? Cause we might have something in common, we might want to chat about this topic.

Uh… Nope. But wouldn't that make sense? Instead what we get is a lot of Link Love for Facebook and RWW. [That's Search Engine Optimization talk for backlinks that give your page a higher value on Google.] Yes, I can use the comments to discuss this post. And I can use comments on my Facebook "share" post. But why can't I network at the higher level?

I think the reason has to do with commerce. If I use the F-in Like button to connect with other users, RATHER than jump over to the Facebook page, well, Facebook hasn't really gotten any value for placing the button there in the first place.

For newbies, who might be using Facebook as their primary and only social networking system, I can see where the simple LIKE button is a powerful way for people to begin sharing. Sharing through Facebook, that is.

My favorite "share" option is Friendfeed. A service that was bought by Facebook about a year ago. Here's how Friendfeed works for me.

Anywhere I go, on any page, regardless of if that site has enabled the F-in button, I click on a little quick link I have added to my browser bar in FireFox and Google Chrome. It looks like this.

And that's where the similarity ends.

My Friendfeed FEED has a lot more options for networking and discussing the topic. Here's what the same post looks like on my Friendfeed page.

You can see that I quoted a part of the article. And from this post, FF friends can re-share, comment, or bookmark my link.

So the F-in button is like Friendfeed lite, or Facebook link building simplified. But WHO goes back on their Facebook wall to find stuff they shared that they might want to read again? I know I don't. On Friendfeed, at the end of everyday, the system sends me an email with all of my scrivings for the day, all my links, all my tweets, all my posts and comments. It's truly my entire FEED online.

I pop in in my email archive folder and off we go. No worries of losing something valuable and no hassle of trying to remember how or when to back up my lifestream, tweetstreem, facebookstream.

Done.

@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/f-in-like

Some other related posts:

• The Twitter Problem: We Love This, But What Are We Going to Do For Money?
• Neo-Facebook: Redesigning for Facebook to Improve Usability & Profitability
• Facebook Fails Index: A New Category of Social Media Challenges On The World's Largest Social Network
• Facebook SCAM? Can your Brand Be HiJacked on Facebook? (BEST BUY, TARGET, APPLE)
• Facebook Innovator #1? WTH FastCompany? & Walmart? I'm Losing My Religion!

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