I'm genuinely trying to understand how this has any significance at all. They are implementing emoticons - all of which could be expressed in other ways on the platform (in a comment etc).<p>The only thing that changes is that now facebook will be able to explicitly map the emoticon expression to the posted content - something that humans could do already given the contextual clues in the use of an emoticon in a comment.<p>Generally, people "like" the person far more than the like the content (i.e. it's various aspects of the person, e.g. status, that are primarily causal with respect to others wanting to click that 'like' button.) My prediction is that people will be unlikely to use these extra buttons because they confuse this essential signalling game. A 'wow' emoticon, for example - can often be ambiguous as to whether or not you are aligning with the recipient, or signalling negatively toward them. Thus folks will struggle with the fear of sending the wrong signal.<p>If facebook persists and people do start using them - then the result will be a greater number of signalling failures, increased conflict, and greater user dissatisfaction.