Chicago - 4:00 pm on Jul 11, 2012 (gmt 0)

I think that the fact of the matter is that Like is insufficient for consumer preference signal aggregation.

A Like is first an active, then passive form of public endorsement. The Like also provides the opportunity to reach the user in their news feed. These two very different use cases is just the start of the reasons why FB must segment preferences.

If you look at the G+ implementation, we have +1s and Follows. A strategy which distinguishes between the variance in intent.

"Want" is just the start of what we will see, as FB attempts to structure consumer preference carefully across many potential use cases. For example I may click on an "Endorse or Recommend" button for my local dentist, but I don't want him on my news feeds.

There are many different reasons that drove these individuals to Like. If FB consumer preferences data is hedged exclusively on this largely unstructured set of data, it will be very sloppy. The closer they get to the intent of the consumer's preference, the more powerful their data will become.