Today we shipped a new feature for Echo that we call ‘Social Likes’. It’s a simple yet powerful addition to the product.

What’s new?

Each item will now have a ‘Like’ button. Users can click it to express their support of the comment. The changes are displayed in real-time.

What’s novel?

Unlike normal ‘Likes’ where a counter may simply increment by 1 (E.g. 5 people liked this) we have taken a page from the best social platforms on the web and made ‘liking’ more social. We will actually display the names and faces of the people who liked a given item right underneath the post.

There are a number of important advantages of actually displaying the names and faces of the people ‘liking’ an item. They include…

1. Liking an item puts a user’s social capital/reputation on the line.
2. Users can see who liked their comment and respond with a reply (driving more engagement).
3. Liking an item is now almost as effective as commenting on an item in terms of displaying article engagement (for publishers) and delivering an ego boost (for users).

We expect that this will drive up engagement and time spent on the page as well as, over time, help us find the most high value content for better sorting/filtering.

Try it live below in the Echo thread!

As always, we appreciate feedback.