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Facebook Tests 'Want' Button To Hoard User Data, Save Its Stock Price

Posted by Soulskill on from the do-not-want dept.

colinneagle writes with news that Facebook is beginning to roll out tests of "want" and "collect" buttons in an attempt to bring users and retailers closer together. "The company is working with Victoria's Secret, Pottery Barn, Michael Kors, Wayfair, Neiman Marcus, Fab.com and Smith Optics. The difference between 'liking' and 'wanting' would be like discovering the holy grail of datamining. Inside Facebook said that although the 'Want' button is different than the Want plugin that developer Tom Waddington noticed in June, the company may eventually offer it as a plugin. Unsurprisingly, Facebook wants to keep people on the site as opposed to leaving to visit Pinterest. Collections will offer retailers a Pinterest-like option to engage buyers, offer users a way to collect images, while also collecting even more data about users. For example, Facebook asks, 'Why are you collecting this?' Regardless of a user's answer, the wants and collects will surely be used to deliver targeted ads. Eventually, the Collections feature could help Facebook generate more revenue."

9 of 98 comments (clear)

  1. FUCK YOU by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Give me a fucking 'dislike' button already, you shitheads!

    1. Re:FUCK YOU by wierd_w · · Score: 4, Funny

      So, you should "want" images of your "dislike" button!

      2 birds, one stone!

    2. Re:FUCK YOU by Yvanhoe · · Score: 4, Funny

      A designer I know handles strips of "dislike" stickers, to put on advertisements in the street. I have a roll in my bag...

      --
      The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
  2. Yay! by ukpyr · · Score: 1, Funny

    I, for one, welcome our new (?) datamining overlords.

    Come on, this is making it too easy for dataming as a profession. This isn't even mining, this is being handed little golden chunks, the only thing left for facebook to do is to raise it up and gleefully say "Look what I have!"

    I know a lot people are really concerned about corporations connecting your consumer/personal dots and figuring out some Deep Secrets, but go look at what google thinks you are interested in (without signing into your google account) and then sign into your google account and look again. It's not all that different - in my case anyway.

    Google: I am not into reality shows, when you get around to mining this. xoxox, brian

  3. awesome by Osgeld · · Score: 3, Funny

    When this hits I am totally going to log in to a fake account and click want on dilldo's and refried beans, nothing else

    1. Re:awesome by game+kid · · Score: 3, Funny

      Oh I think you are on to something. If I join you and a bunch of others in Operation Dildo Want, we can finally convince Nintendo to make a WarioWare ShoveItUpYourAssGame for the WiiU (now that the old Wii's sun will soon set). Then, when Platinum Games gets wind of this, their horrified management will cancel their Bayonetta 2 exclusivity plan there, and they'll move it and the original to, say, Steam where I can buy 'em for the PC!

      ...what!? I can dream! About the games...and her butt...and they've been kinda talking about it too...

      --
      You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
  4. the potential for hilarity is enormous by wierd_w · · Score: 3, Funny

    Imagine for a moment, the profoundly funny and silly trends that could run from clicking "want" on simple, stark statements, like:

    Privacy

    Responsibility in Industry and Politics

    Or even just silly stuff, "celebrities eating hotdogs"

  5. Re:And Then There's World Hunger by lister+king+of+smeg · · Score: 3, Funny

    i used to get similar results but that is because i marked all of the ads as "sexually explicit". for a while i didn't have any ads now i don't because of adblock and noscript

    --
    ---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
  6. My new antisocial network by russotto · · Score: 5, Funny

    Has no Like, +1, or Want button. It does have "-1", "Dislike" and "Do Not Want". If you were to post something, it would delete your post and insult you. However, it doesn't matter because it doesn't accept registrations (either gives server down errors or captchas with symbols not in unicode), so it's all academic anyway.