The Like economy: the social web in transition

Recently, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg claimed that the social will be the future organizing principle of economies. This paper will examine how platforms increasingly connect economic value and the social by focusing on the role of social buttons. Drawing on digital methods, we explore the growing implementation of social buttons and counters. Special attention is paid to Facebook and its Open Graph which allows the platform to connect to the entire web through the Like Button. Linking Facebook’s efforts to a historical perspective on the hit and link economy, we claim that what might be in the making is not only a social web, but a re-centralized, data intensive fabric - the Like economy. This Like economy can be understood as part of emerging free economies which offer services for free and generate profits via their by-products - in Facebook’s case social activities such as liking, sharing and commenting.