32 Points

Facebook, you should really be ashamed of yourself this time.

It's one thing to rip off features from Twitter - Twitter's a big, burly company with some hard-hitting people on their board. When you rip them off, it's like you're flattering them, because it doesn't actually threaten them too much, and everyone knows you're doing it.

But ripping off Tweetmeme? C'mon, that's like a schoolyard bully stealing the little guy's lunch money. Tweetmeme isn't Twitter - they're a Twitter application, designed and developed by third-party developers, who (I'm guessing) worked pretty hard to create the awesome site that they've made (disclaimer: we use Tweetmeme's Retweet Badge here on Twittown).

I'm talking about Facebook's new "Share Badge," which shows how many times a particular article has been shared (retweeted) on Facebook. It's all part of Facebook's attempt to become more like Twitter - except this time it's really shameless. Check out a side-by-side comparison of the two badges:

Now, c'mon - that can't be a coincidence. Facebook's Share Badge has exactly the same layout, all the way down to the little dialogue bubble coming off the top of the share button.

But wait - you say. Maybe it's not that simple. Maybe Facebook just took their idea and ran with it. After all, they wouldn't just shamefully steal the image and superimpose their Facebook Share badge right over it, would they?

Actually, yes they would. The Facebook Share badge is EXACTLY the same height as the Tweetmeme Retweet Badge.

'Cause everyone knows that 61 pixels is such a normal dimension in the world of social networking - I mean everything's 61 pixels, right? 'Cause it's...a prime number.

Look, Facebook, the least you could have done was slightly change the image somehow so that it wasn't so glaringly obvious that you stole the idea and the layout from Tweetmeme. When you do stuff like this, it makes you seem...desperate, and that's not how that the world's largest social network should be coming across to its customers.

Someone recently referred to Facebook as the "Microsoft of Social Networking." Given both companies rich histories of stealing ideas and code from their competition, I guess that description is becoming more and more accurate.

Whether or not people actually USE the new Facebook "Share Badge," remains to be seen. Sharing something on Facebook isn't quite as simple as retweeting something on Twitter, and so far, Facebook sharing hasn't taken off in the way that its designers intended to. Clearly the Facebook Share Badge is an attempt to increase the amount of sharing done on the social network, in an attempt to stave off Twitter's status as the current aggregator of choice for most hardcore sharers.

The new Facebook "Share Badge" should start popping up all around the internet in the coming days; ironically, on most websites, it'll probably get placed right next to the Tweetmeme retweet badge that they stole the idea and layout from.

Comments
Twittown Comments
Submitted by KH (not verified) on Dec 17, 2009 23:37 says:

I love it. Look everywhere: All of the social media icons are displayed in the same size for a reason - if they weren't; they'd look like Outback "Flare" on a webpage/ad/blog/email and take away from the intended message. I like the consistency. Thank you tweetmeme for creating a great design and thanks facebook for not recreating the wheel and cluttering up my blog posts and email templates. Now, if they just didn't take forever to load on the page.

Submitted by Thomas (not verified) on Oct 29, 2009 07:00 says:

I'm with Martin. Glad for the consistency of size for easy and better looking addition of both elements on your blog. Wouldn't be shocked to see a Digg, Sphinn and StumbleUpon ones in the next few weeks.

Submitted by Rob on Oct 29, 2009 10:06 says:

Check it:

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1127/731560968_ed48bb6e5f.jpg

Look closely at the Digg and Reddit badges. You will see that Tweetmeme did not, in fact, directly copy the design of either of those badges. Tweetmeme's design is a little "dialogue bubble" coming up - that was original. Neither Digg nor Reddit, the two major social media aggregators, were doing that.

Also, Digg's badge is 78 pixels high.

Any way you shake it, you can't avoid the truth that Facebook shamefully stole the design for that badge from Tweetmeme, and pointing out that there are other badges in the world doesn't change that.

Submitted by Lance Brown (not verified) on Oct 28, 2009 23:57 says:

This whole badge idea was originated by Digg anyway...Tweetmeme was just a Twitterized version of that.

As far as the design goes, making it the same height is just smart. It would make for a lot of ugly blogs to have two slightly-differently-sized badges sitting next to each other everywhere. And every other part of the design is different--from the speech bubble pointer to the corners to the shape and style of both the top and bottom boxes.

It would make more sense to give the Tweetmeme designers shit for *not* imitating the height of the Digg badge, so that site owners could have a fully-standardized size for such things.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Oct 28, 2009 21:06 says:

Doesn't really matter to me if the idea was original or not. A good idea is a good idea. Why not implement a good feature when and where you can, for the user? As for the look, the look of the badge seems to make sense to me - it's blue and sharp-cornered. lol I don't see what the big deal is.

Submitted by Martin Wulffeld (not verified) on Oct 28, 2009 20:03 says:

Not defending Facebook but in terms of visual consistency and ease of integration into a design it's nice that it's the same height.

Submitted by Roger Harris on Oct 28, 2009 11:52 says:

Twitter: @rharris
LinkedIn: rogerharris

Seems to be fashionable to bash Facebook these days! Well, they deserve it. After the latest subterfuge rewriting the Privacy ToS, it seems Facebook is intent on taking over the world, and your life. Too big for comfort, lumbering, Big Brotherish and prone to bungling, and not cool any more. But you gotta have it. Sound familiar? Check out my blog posts Is Facebook the Microsoft of social media?

Submitted by Rob on Oct 27, 2009 16:54 says:

Useful? Absolutely - it'll have exactly the effect Facebook wants - to encourage sharing and take some of the aggregation market away from Twitter. Original? Not at all. =)

Submitted by John Samuel (not verified) on Oct 27, 2009 15:16 says:

Though I can't comment on whether the idea is copied, but as a user, I feel that the count of shares is a useful feature

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