Facebook Changes "Fan" to "Like" And Adds "Unlike" Button

Facebook Unlike - Finally!

There has been many somewhat disguised moves at Facebook as of late to help monetize the incredible personal information capital they've been growing through their enormous user base. While the recent change from "fan" to "like", Facebook pages (ie. business pages) are able to aggregate more followers.

Like - What About Unlike?

With the advent of the "like" button, Facebook pages are now setting themselves up for close alignment with the trend to "like" things that people comment on, post, etc. This means it's easier to get fans, in other words. With all the talk on Wall Street of the two major social media networks - Facebook and Twitter, failing to fully monetize their business model, we're starting to see some changes happening from Facebook. But are they good? And how do they affect your privacy? There's an article in the works on PrivacyReform.com that addresses the privacy side of this issue (we'll post the link when it's published).

Meanwhile, for our Guru of Search visitors we'd like to point out the addition of an (finally!) unlike button on Facebook. No - you still can't unlike comments or posts people make, but you can "unlike" pages (similar to how you could stop being a fan).

Facebook Enters Google Territory - Under the Radar

The difference being that at the same time the change was made from "fan" to "like", website owners are now able to add a "like" button to any of their pages. This is in effect allowing Facebook to create a massive index of web pages out there that it's users like. Since Facebook users represent a large portion of the overall web surfing population, this sets them up directly for a content harvesting/ indexing model similar to that of search engines. The difference being that the level of interactivity on Facebook, and user retention statistics (the amount of time a user spends on a given page) is much, much higher .After all, when you do a Google search, you tend to leave once you find what you're looking for. Not true on Facebook - where people will spend extended sessions making new connections, catching up with old friends and classmates, chatting, uploading photos, playing games, etc.

Propagation of the Like Button

But how does Facebook get users to help it index pages? Simple - by allowing website owners to add a like button to any of their pages. We're planning on adding one above, just below the "Tools" section. The like button comes in various flavors, and can be customized on this Facebook Developers Page. You can choose what you want the button to look like, whether you want to display profile thumbnails of people that like the article, the font and color you want to use (from a list of selections), etc. See the image at left for details.

Once you have made your selections, hit the get code button to grab the code snippet to insert on your web page. 

Updating Facebook Like Button for Multiple Pages

Note that in its static version, the snippet will only apply to the page of the URL you entered in your selection box (ie. www.GuruofSearch.com in our example). If you're generating your web pages client-side using PHP or ASP, for example, you can make some changes to the code that will draw in the URL of whatever page is being served. That way you can load the snippet on any page and it will pull in the URL of that page and allow users to like that particular page (ie. www.GuruofSearch.com/facebook-fan-like-unlike), instead of the root page you entered at the beginning (www.GuruofSearch.com). You'll need to make some changes to the code as follows:

PHP Example:

<?php print '<iframe src="http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%253A%252F%252Fwww.GuruofSearch.com%252F'.$_REQUEST['q'].'&amp;layout... ?>

$_REQUEST['q'] is the snippet of code that pulls in the part of the URL after your domain name (ie. /facebook-fan-like-unlike in the case of this page). This is the part of the code that dynamically adjusts the URL for the page the visitor is currently on. Note that in the above code snippet we left out the remainder of the code, as we only wanted to highlight the change you'll need to make to create a dynamic version of this script.

What the Facebook Like Button Looks Like on Your Pages

The output will look like this, and will let your users like your page:

If you chose to show faces, a list of thumbnails of the most recent fans will show up below the text. All users have to do is click on the like button to like your page.

How to Unlike a Page?

You'll notice that there doesn't appear to be an unlike button. That's because to unlike a page all you need to do is click the like button again. That will in effect unlike that page. If you decide you like it, simply click like again.

How to Unlike Facebook Business Pages?

Note that this unlike process applies to the like button that was created to help Facebook index web pages in general. To unlike Facebook pages, which you sign up for within Facebook via the like button, simply find the page on Facebook, and then find the unlike link in the bottom portion of the left-hand column of the page.