Facebook Reactions News: Buttons Launched; How-To Instructions Released!

Major social networking app Facebook unveils Reactions - which consists of animated emoticons to go along with the 'like' button. Six emojis have been created for pilot testing in Spain and Ireland according to Tech Crunch.

The just-launched Facebook reactions have six emoticons which consist of angry, sad, wow, yay, haha and love. This will be rolled out on iOS and Android devices as well as to PCs. User feedback from the two European countries will be used by developers to enhance the said feature as the company plans to roll it out worldwide soon.

How to use the Facebook reactions? The new buttons will appears in mobile devices when you click the "Like" button, while it will come out when you hover your mouse for PCs.

According to Director of Product Adam Mosseri, the company had chosen Spain and Ireland due to their large user population data. Also, they don't have many networks of friends from international borders which made it perfect for a test group. Ireland uses English as a first language, while Spain is a non-English speaking country.

According to founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook Reactions are meant for people to express empathy on social media. However, while this purpose sounds good on print, things might not work out with how the real world sees it. Would users really want to click that Angry emoji? It will simply show that users either have too many choices that in the end, they won't make even one according to Mashable.

Also, Cox said that Facebook aspires that it would address the long-time request of users to create the "Thumbs Down" button. Zuckerberg also added that people are looking for other options that will let them express other feelings in social media in various posts such as death, illness, or accidents.

After all, the "Like" button is not an ideal way to express these feelings of empathy. He said, "Not every moment is a good moment, and sometimes you just want a way to express empathy."