Facebook's ubiquitous "Like" button is one of its most popular features, but users have expressed desires to have more such options, including a "dislike" button and others such. While there is no word on the "dislike" option, Facebook is reportedly working on a "want" button.
As first reported by Inside Facebook, developer Tom Waddington from Cut Out and Keep noticed that an intriguing addition to the existing list of Social Plugins: a disabled "want" button had appeared as an XFBML tag - . This "want" button could apparently be used by third-party developers, who can incorporate it into an existing platform such as an e-commerce site, or even a social platform that features products, such as the popular Pinterest.
However, if you were thinking that you could simply click "want" when your friends post pictures of their pets, or a home-made cake, for instance, things might not go quite this way. The "want" button will reportedly work only on Open Graph objects labeled as "products" in order to help retailers.
Facebook's "like" button currently has a huge list of applications, as it can be found on blogs, events, product pages, news, and virtually anywhere on the Web. A standalone "want" button, however, could prove to be a powerful commerce solution for the social networking company. Facebook would be able to build a comprehensive database of shoppers' product sentiment. This could then benefit third-party developers who, in turn, could build tools such as wish-lists and product recommendations.
Moreover, a product-focused button would greatly benefit advertisers, who could further target ads for Facebook users based on their "wants" for similar products. Needless to mention, this also has a tremendous power to undercut competition. An advertiser, for instance, could offer a tempting discount for a product to Facebook users who have "wanted" a similar product, but from the competition. In addition, one users "want" something, that product would appear on their Timeline and Newsfeed, further boosting advertisement.
According to Waddington, the new "want: button can be implemented in its present state, but the plugin returns an error. Although a developer can implement the button, it will not do anything just yet, and clicking "want" will not show up on your Timeline for now, as the option seems to be still in the early stages.
"Currently, publishing want actions is disabled, though the button does render," Waddington wrote in a blog post. Facebook did not offer any details regarding the upcoming feature. "We're always testing new platform features, however we have nothing new to announce," said a company spokeswoman.
