The rating system would be executed on a five-star scale and would offer users more insight into the general quality or reception of a service or piece of entertainment than the ambiguous Facebook "Like" function.
Facebook has had star ratings on its pages since 2012, but since the ratings have never been prominently displayed on said pages, many have probably missed the fact that they existed at all. Now, however, according to a report from Tech Crunch, Facebook is testing a new system that would display the star rating system at the top of pages for businesses, TV shows, films, musical artists, and more. The rating system would be executed on a five-star scale and would offer users more insight into the general quality or reception of a service or piece of entertainment than the ambiguous Facebook “Like” function.
As Tech Crunch notes, a preponderance of “Likes” on Facebook doesn’t necessarily indicate quality of anything, but rather a ubiquity within the public consciousness. A five-star rating system meanwhile, would go a long way in turning Facebook into a destination for someone looking for a place to eat in an unfamiliar town, or searching for a movie to watch on Friday evening. In other words, Facebook would gain functions not unlike those that define other social media outlets like Yelp, which exclusively focuses on ratings and reviews of businesses.
Of course, Facebook actually trying to adopt a Yelp-like aesthetic for its business pages has both benefits and drawbacks. On Yelp, most businesses have profiles, but those profiles are not managed directly by the business owner. Yelp pages often features phone numbers, addresses, and websites of the business in question, but their basic function is to host user ratings and reviews. Facebook profiles, on the other hand, serve largely as a business’s link to the world, meaning that a restaurant or bar with a low star rating would probably not feel too strongly about displaying that rating on the social media profile they manage personally.
It isn’t yet clear whether or not Facebook will allow businesses to opt out of displaying their rating.
The five-star rating system isn’t all bad for business owners, however. A rating for a business, a band, a film, or any other frequently visited Facebook page – whether low or high – would encourage Facebook users to contribute their own rating to the page. Just as with “Likes,” more ratings would boost the public consciousness of the page and help it to appear in News Feeds around the social media network. A greater presence in the News Feed would in turn help the business in question gain a greater following.
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