How about No because Facebook's data mining and privacy invasion activities are apalling, and no one should be doing anything to encourage, endorse or otherwise support this company?

This is so grade school, all about who is the most popular girl in class.

>no one should be doing anything to encourage, endorse or otherwise support this company?

Resistance is futile.

Christopher - I think you make great points and personally I agree with many of them. However, there are many who feel like sharing their favorite type on their social network of choice sounds like a nice feature and responded that way.

John - I'm very sensitive to these issues and I assure you we'll take them into account when considering any use of their service. This is very exploratory at this point.

there are many who feel like sharing their favorite type on their social network of choice sounds like a nice feature

They can still do it from within their social network of choice, without the need for other people browsing fonts to see a button which, in fact, is an ad for a specific social network.

nick said:
> This is so grade school, all about who is the most popular girl in class.

well, um, no, actually, it isn't. it isn't nearly that trivial at all.

it's data-collection, for the purpose of collaborative filtering.

collaborative filtering is the _ultimate_ "killer app", because
it solves the ever-growing problem of information overload,
pulling your personal needles out of the content haystack,
as quickly and efficiently as a super-turbo-charged magnet.

the big question is whether we want this "killer" functionality
tied up by a private company looking for a revenue-stream,
especially one which values neither our privacy nor our data,
and has been slippy-slidey when it comes to telling us that...

i say no. emphatically.

this technology needs to be owned collectively, by all of us.

-bowerbird

"this technology needs to be owned collectively, by all of us."

Which brings us to this not-quite-uninteresting project:
ReadWriteWeb: Diaspora Project: Building the Anti-Facebook
Project Diaspora Kickstarter Page

BTW, I can't cast my vote since I'm not on Facebook, but seeing how the Anti-Facebook backlash has really been gaining momentum lately, I'd warn that including that «like» button can also be perceived, quite negatively, as a statement of solidarity with a company that more and more people turn away from. See for instance this current comment – http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/facebook-rogue/ – which specifically mentions the «like» button «littering the internet».

And the votes are in.

Interested to see how this unfolds.

Stephen, is this system through FaceBook or proprietary?

Nina - yes, those are essentially John's thoughts.
Christopher - those thumbs are from the experimental Random Fonts page and are proprietary.

The other lists (Bestseller, Popular) are populated by sales figures and pageviews respectively.

These pages have been around for a while and are not connected to Facebook.

>Resistance is futile.

No it's not. Delete your Facebook account at http://j.mp/delfaceb