Story: One of the most important features of Facebook these days is the "like" button. It's an easy way to spread the word about an item, and is a huge marketing boon to business. If you don't have one on your website, you should, right away. I plan to adding one soon to www.zinchuk.ca.
Noticeably absent is the lack of an "unlike" button, or an "I hate this" button. I guess the idea is to keep things as positive as possible. Website promoters appreciate knowing 15,000 people like their site, but probably don't want to know 39,000 hate it.
That being said, there are times when the like button is out of place.
Over the latter half of the summer, an expedition has been visiting the Titanic wreck site. The company doing the work, RMS Titanic, Inc., is the registered salvage rights holder.
Accordingly, they have a Facebook page for people to follow the progress. This is a big change from the days in the mid-1980s when Robert Ballard and company found the ship and you had to wait for National Geographic to do a spread.
However, there are a number of times when they post little factoids that just don't fit well with the like button, usually used for people to agree with a comment.
Here are some of those recent postings:
"Despite most of the soft woods deteriorating, the ceiling and wall panels, wainscoting and decorative window coverings are preserved in the first-class reception room, and in a few of the deluxe suites on the decks above."
95 people like this.
"After the wreck, the White Star Line office received a mysterious letter on stationery belonging to Titanic passenger William Harbeck. Harbeck had been traveling with his mistress on the ship. The woman who wrote the letter called herself Brownie Harbeck, and asked for William's recovered money and personal effects. It was later revealed the author was not a relative, and her identity remains unknown."
196 people like this, probably because James Cameron likely based the movie Titanic on her.
"Titanic's passengers came from 44 different countries."
168 people like this.
"The Titanic wreck is under 2 miles of water."
179 people like this.
"If the ship's bow had crashed straight into the iceberg, Titanic and most of her passengers would have probably survived."
261 people like this.
"Even if all of Titanic's 20 lifeboats had been filled to capacity, there would only have been room for 1,178 people. Over a thousand of the passengers were doomed."
122 people like this.
"There were only 326 bodies recovered from the ocean after the sinking of Titanic, but there are currently no skeletons at the wreck site. Most of the bodies were lost at sea."
125 people like this.
See my point? "Liking" the fact Titanic is under 2 miles of water is just plain odd. So is liking all the wood having deteriorated, or that if the ship had crashed directly into an iceberg, the ship and most her passengers would have survived. And why would someone "like" knowing the ship had passengers from 44 different countries. It's just doesn't fit.
Perhaps there's a word or two missing here. This number of people like learning about this fact, but don't necessarily like the fact in and of itself.
Any way we look at it, Facebook has become a new metric in our society. With over 500 million users, it's impossible to ignore. News reporters quickly find out how many people join Facebook pages in support of certain causes, or in mourning of those lost. Now how many people "like" something will become part of the lexicon as well.
I wonder if I posted my column on Facebook, how many people would like it? Perhaps some questions are best left unanswered.
- Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at [email protected].
