Hopefully this will solve this "I'm not sure what Like means" question :) - Paul Buchheit

That is a long alternative. :-) - Louis Gray

Alt text :-) - Kevin Fox

I like that you chose to share this with us. :) - Alex Power

That is EXACTLY what I am thinking when I click like. - Robert Scoble

Customization like gmail - imran

imran++ - Voyagerfan5761 from fftogo

maybe instead of "like", it could be "thanks"? Such as "Thanks for sharing: Mike, Joe, Tai and 123 others" - Neil Kandalgaonkar

I like "Like" just the way it is. - Jess Lee

Or change it to "Flag", and may I dare dream of flag colors or numbers or even flag labels? - Yuval Atzmon

"Share" would be a good alternative, right? Because that's what it does. - TobiasVerhoog.com

I really like "share." It's clear and concise, while "like" is only the latter. - Scott of Two Countries

I like "like". - m13a

Paul, even if you may feel "Like" and its current icon and positioning is the next best option (and perhaps you're right), I'm sure you can think of less strawman-ish proposals in the discussion of alternatives ;) ("Thanks", "Interesting!", giving it a star, etc., or putting the "Like" next to the part reading "...posted a message" etc., which are probably all worse, but just as for instance.) Tobias, "Share" lacks the emotional component to this, the supportive "liking" of someone else's action and the accompanying smile, which spreads the good karma and may make you want to post more stuff to Friendfeed. Unless someone puts forth a real alternative, I'm also in the liking like camp ;) - Philipp Lenssen

I'd like "Rocks". btw micampe made an interesting greasemonkey script to change the like icon: http://friendfeed.com/e... - Zio Bonino

a bit long, how about "Cool, I'll pimp this too" - Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)

"Mark" or "Flag" or "Star" would work for me. It would also be nice to have the ability to "like" or "dislike" or "agree with" or "disagree with" with posts or comments in the conventional sense, to able to vote on them. But perhaps that would create too cluttered an interface. - Sean McBride

I think ratings would be cool as Netflix uses. There are five stars that range from "hated it" to "really liked it". based on the rating, the item would move closer to the top of postings. - Valley

I still think it should read "Interesting" - xero

i usually think that actually but i also use like as a bookmark for myself so that i'll come back and read the linked item later, usually done when on iphone or in a hurry - mike "glemak" dunn

How about "Bump"? That's basically what liking does: pops the post to the top of the feeds because someone found it interesting. We should have another link for "Favorite" being stuff we actually like and/or want to review later or follow up on the discussion from. That way, Bump would be a vote for interesting content and Favorite could be a way to archive what you like. Best of both worlds. - Lindsay is :)

I suspect the "like" term will become more appropriate as the semantic filtering features get added to FF - we will then have the option of "more things you might like too" - Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)

Joelle -- glad to see you're envisioning and lobbying for semantic filtering. Friendfeed could radically revolutionize this space and platform by moving to the next level: integrating Semantic Web technologies into Friendfeed. It wouldn't be that difficult to do. For instance, users should be able to express their likes and dislikes about anything in simple plain text anywhere on Friendfeed. In a comment, it might work by using a period at the beginning of a comment, followed by your like and a plus sign or by a dislike and a minus sign. - Sean McBride

I vote for "bump" or "noted". - Rochelle

.Semantic Web+ - Sean McBride

I just stated that I like the Semantic Web. Friendfeed should be able to parse, collect, organize and data mine these semantic statements across the entire Friendfeed space. One should be able to edit one's collected semantic statements in a separate Friendfeed editor. - Sean McBride

What is Friendfeed mostly about? Matching people on the basis of their shared likes and dislikes. Using simple semantic markup, the matching system could be made much more powerful and efficient. - Sean McBride

How about 'appreciate'? - Akiva Moskovitz

But "appreciate" conveys a positive value judgment, unlike "mark" or "flag," which are neutral. "appreciate" would require a balancing "don't appreciate." - Sean McBride

Along with the the text, I think it's the smile icon that looks out of place and sometimes plain wrong on certain posts. Might be worth some thought to change it . - Kamath (नमः)

Bump is neutral too... - Lindsay is :)

"Bump" for me conveys the suggestion that I am deliberately trying to push an item back to the top of the attention queue. "Mark" or "Flag" just says that I find this item to be interesting in some way. It feels more neutral to me. But that's just me. - Sean McBride

But that is what you are doing, Sean. When you like something you're saying "hey everyone in my feed, this is something worth looking at!". Maybe that wasn't your intention? In that case, it would be better to have two links, like I suggested, where one is specifically to bump (give props to the poster for posting and promote the post) and the other is to favorite it or mark it as personally interesting. - Lindsay is :)

Lindsay -- got it now. You took that distinction into account. "Bump" would work for that purpose, yes. (Hashing over this small set of variables and conventions gets into strange parts of the brain. :) But these micro-user interface issues matter a lot in improving the user experience.) - Sean McBride

I think that the current system is ambiguous enough to be used by everyone, wether that simply be for bookmarking purposes, sharing with friends, or actually linking the item. If you want to say "thank you", there are comments. - Roberto Bonini

Roberto - "like" to me clearly says that I like, approve of and support a post, and the point of view in that post. I often don't want to communicate that when marking a post as "of interest." - Sean McBride

I "liked" this, meaning that I think the proposal is hopelessly neurotic and should be abandoned, and hope that all my friends agree, and "like" it in solidarity - Joshua Allen

I like "Interesting". Like implies approval. Plus I disagree with the long version you have there. My view is that people Like things to pass them on to their followers, not to say anything about the content or the person originally sharing the content. - Sam Pullara

Most of the sites I use, like Flickr and Upcoming, use "flag" to mean that you are alerting the site owners to offensive content. "Bump" is neutral, but perplexing -- this isn't Digg, it doesn't go up in points, so what am I really doing? I still like "thanks for sharing" because it's so friendly and makes me feel like this is a group of friends (rather than an abstract collection of links). - Neil Kandalgaonkar

I just had another idea; what if we put the "upvote" label on the poster rather than the item? You can consider it whatever you like on the backend, as a vote for the content and/or the person. But it makes the job clearer on the frontend. You are approving of the "Friend"'s recent act of sharing this with you. - Neil Kandalgaonkar

Careful here... I think it works pretty well as is, in spite of any ambiguity. And I definitely disagree with anyone who wants a "do not like", a.k.a. "bury". - Richard Walker *cultUtee* from twhirl

Don't you think the "like" link is too long? - Steve Chou

I think it's fine just the way it is. There are a myriad of ways users use "Like" as indicated in this thread. Personally, I use it like a mini bookmarking service. I "like" interesting stuff, then come back later and read and decide if it is worth bookmarking over at delicious. I don't typically care that it gets bumped to the top or that the OP sees that I like it. But that's just me. The beauty of friendfeed is partly it's google-like simplicity. Let's keep it that way, ambiguity nothwithstanding. - Laura Norvig

Sorry to chime in so late, but it's my understanding (maybe I'm wrong) that the sharing aspect of "like" is the surprising one. "Share" alone doesn't let the user know it will be instant rather than allowing them to pick and choose who they share with, but I suppose they'd learn that after only one click (not terrible, but not great). "Share with friends" would fix that. Oh, or what about "Feed friends" or "Feed my friends"? This is a really important feature and worthy of containing the brand name. Oh, or "Promote this" which has the double meaning of promoting to my friends and bumping it up? I'm sure all these options have been discussed and shot down for some good reason or another, but I wanted to chime in. - Kerah