The Social Currency of Opinion

Social networks, of which I count deviantART to be one for the sake of this journal, basically operate on personal opinion.

In the case of deviantART, opinion is most easily conveyed by the use of clicking on the giant, green +Favourites button on any given page of content. Recently we expanded +Favourites out to affect things like Journals, and this has been a sensible and positive change, although it met with a bit of criticism from some at first. In the case of Twitter, opinion is shared at its simplest level through Retweeting something, thereby letting all of your Followers know about what somebody said (somebody you likely agree with in a particular instance). In the case of Facebook, opinion is quickly shared by the famous Like button.

In all of these cases, users are presented the ability to quickly let their opinions be known, in some manner, without having to actually say anything in particular. The function says for itself "I approve of this," and while generally we might like to pretend we don't care what the world thinks, deep down most of us get a little smirk from the positive feedback, however minor it may be.

Social networks, it turns out, thrive on this currency. It keeps things functioning. It keeps the wheels turning. It keeps people coming back to express their opinions even more. Without these core, albeit simple, functions, social networks that thrive would, in fact, not thrive.

It's funny to think about the +Favourite-style buttons that exist across many different social networks and how we feel about them. For example, on Twitter I love being Retweeted. On Facebook I mildly appreciate a "like," and on deviantART I love a +Favourite. I also love the "like" function on Dribbble a lot, too. But then on LinkedIn I don't really care if somebody "likes" something I put on there (hey I updated my resume...awesome...I guess). And then on Google+, if somebody +1's something I've written, I couldn't care less. It's practically meaningless to me.

So, interestingly, in my case the value of a social opinion function is directly dependent on the value I assign to the social network itself. I love dA and Twitter and Dribbble, mildly care about Facebook, and don't really care much about LinkedIn and Google+. I suspect people are similar in how they assign value to the opinions shared on their social networks as well.

In the case of deviantART, +Favourites have seen constantly-growing use. To date we have 1,751,058,461 Favourites. That's a lot. Obviously it will continue to go up as people become more familiar with the concept of the quick sharing of opinion on dA and beyond, but I think for it to have even stronger impact we might need to broaden its function.

I'm wondering how we would all feel, collectively, if we were informed of one another's +Favourite activities. Right now +Favourites are somewhat private; if I +Favourite a deviation, only the artist is informed. What if all of you Watchers of mine got a notification when I +Favourited something? Would you like that or hate it? I'd honestly like to know.