Public Displays of Affection
Stars. Hearts. Likes. All the validation currencies that pave our yellow brick social media roads.
They’re powerful, these little units of value. The valentines from Tumblr, Facebook’s thumbs-ups, the gold stars of approval from Twitter/Favrd/Favstar. Most new networks employ them: Ping, Instagram, Mlkshk, others that I’m not cool enough to know. Whether you see these currencies as treasures or mere take-out menus, you can’t deny the role they have in strengthening their networks.
“Validation currencies” since the giver of a star/like/heart is validating the contribution (the tweet/post), indicating they value the work (and the contributor typically feels a sense of validation upon receiving them). Also because the more units a contribution receives, the contributor can recognize more benefits (the tweet shows up on leaderboards, the system exposes the contribution more broadly, etc). This term is also a nod to whuffie, a reputation-based currency described in a 2003 science-fiction novel, where the public opinion of a person determines that person’s wealth.
For most, validation currency carries emotional weight. For the comedian alone on stage, those laughs from the dark theater can be lifelines. Some users can get hooked; contributions are made solely for the currency they might receive. Gaming occurs, or ‘the guise of a game.’ But at a base level, it’s simply nice to know someone out there values something you said. It’s gratification, it feels good. Validation currency can signal that the giver thinks similarly to the contributor, and friendships can form as a result.
Emotional weight aside, validation currency systems inherently make a network stickier.
A few things about a network (and I’m using network mostly to describe a social network system):
1) Metcalfe’s Law states the value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of the network’s connected users. It describes the power of network externalities: the more users of a network and the more connections, the more valuable it is to its existing and potential users.
2) The value of a network is realized only through contributions to the network. The number of Facebook users is significant only if they use it, in the same way connected fax machines aren’t valuable unless someone needs to send a fax.
3) A network’s contributions can be measured in a number of ways: the breadth of contributions (resulting primarily from the number of users), the quality of contributions (do the contributions provide utility to those receiving them), and the frequency of the contributions (how often do people post). As each of these increase, so typically does the value of the network. (One could argue that overly frequent contributors can quickly decrease the value of a network, but networks make it easy for users to turn them off. Inversely, users that post once a year don’t add much value to begin with.
4) A network’s value also increases when the contributions are consumed more frequently. The more often users visit to read posts, the more value developed. More time onsite = more advertising dollars (to use one measure of value). This is stickiness, and all online enterprises desire it.
So here’s where I’ll borrow from Metcalfe’s Law and glibly throw out Samhey’s Law (which has probably been articulated more effectively elsewhere, let me know), which states that a network’s validation currency system inherently increases the adhesiveness of the network and thus the value of the network, by exponentially increasing both the contributions and the visits to a network.
The ‘payment’ of a validation currency unit (e.g. someone hearting your post) is in itself a contribution to the network. A heart is a particular type of post. In fact, to the original contributor, a heart attached to their contribution might be more important than any post they might read that day on their network (again, emotional weight).
Thus for each original contribution to a network (a post), that network’s validation currency system spawns multiple derivative contributions (hearts). Those derivative contributions in turn spawn more visits. The original contributor is encouraged to return frequently to see what currency they may have received. And with each visit they may see a new original contribution that they in turn may reward with their own payment.
It’s a self-perpetuating system, a flywheel. Post, check for hearts, see others’ posts, give hearts, rinse, repeat. It increases adhesion. It makes the network stronger. And network providers (social media companies) were smart to build such systems in from the start or add them on later.
An interesting point is that Twitter never built receiving validation currency into their system. You could always see what tweets you or others had favorited (such an odd verbing of a noun!). But you could never easily see who had favorited your own tweets, until Favotter, Dean Allen’s Favrd, or, more recently, Tim Haines’ Favstar provided that service. Favrd shut down while Favstar is growing rapidly - Tim is a student of network effects.
Here’s the thing that I wanted to write about, and I had to think about and describe all of the above before doing so: I believe that paying someone a validation currency unit should be a semi-private act. Tumblr, for example, shows a post’s author the hearts the post received. But it doesn’t show those hearts on others’ dashboards. Others can check someone’s post to see who hearted it, but they need to take that step - the service doesn’t actively expose them. This is the way it should be, in my opinion. I tell the contributor I like their work; others aren’t told, but they can find out if they want to.
Facebook, on the other hand, exposes all the payments. If I tell a Facebook contributor I like their work, I’m effectively telling everyone connected to me on Facebook I like this the contributor’s work. My act of liking something shows up in others’ feeds (or at least it has in the past; Facebook keeps tinkering with how feeds are constructed). Instead of a semi-private act between me and the contributor, it becomes a public display of affection. That doesn’t seem right to me. I also find that I typically don’t get a lot of utility in learning that so-and-so liked such-and-such. It seems forced. Same goes for comments, another type of contribution. If I make a comment on someone’s contribution, I feel that should be a semi-private note to the contributor. But nope, Facebook actively exposes that comment to anyone connected to me. PDA.
This type of ‘exposure’ just started happening in Instagram, a service I like but was bummed to see change in this manner. In Instagram, you can like others’ photos, you can check who liked your own photos, and you can check others’ photos to see who liked them if you wanted to. In Instagram’s most recent update, however, their News feed now actively exposes the likes of those you follow.
I get why Facebook, Instagram and other networks do this — they’re trying to prime the pump of Metcalfe’s Law and introduce more opportunities for connections. If your friend likes this person’s works, you should too, goes the logic. But to me it doesn’t seem right. My act of telling someone I like their work doesn’t need to be broadcast around the network. It’s like the valentine you passed to the girl next to you in class is suddenly grabbed by the teacher and announced to the class.
