A few months ago, Facebook announced they were working on “Reaction Emojis” to take the place of the pretty popular “Like” button. Instead of just adding a “Dislike” button, Facebook decided to add some other reactions as well. There are now 7 emojis that are available in six countries – with today’s addition being Japan. These include Like, Love, Haha, Yay, Wow, Sad and Angry. The announcement today is also that Facebook now has six partners for their Instant Articles in Japan. Which allows users to get news quicker than ever before.
The emojis are part of Facebook’s attempt to continue to stay relevant. With many other social media platforms rising, like Snapchat, Twitter, and Google+, Facebook wants to remain everyone’s number one social media platform. These Reaction Emojis were being tested in two countries, as early as last October. They are rolling out very slowly, and looking to see how these different countries react to the different reaction emojis available on Facebook now. Users will be able to add these to stories they see in their timeline. Think of how the Like button has always been there, and add these 6 other emojis along to it. So now if you see a story of someone passing away, you can click on the “Sad” reaction emoji here.
Currently, Facebook doesn’t have the US or the UK scheduled to see these reaction emojis. Which is a bit of a surprise really. We’ll likely see them in both the UK and US in the near future however. Currently, they are available in Chile, Portugal, Philippines, Spain, Ireland and Japan.
Facebook also recently launched Instant Articles, which is a way for you to interact with news on Facebook’s website or app. It’s similar to Twitter’s Moments feature which they just launched a few months ago as well. You’re able to catch up on the news happening pretty quickly with Facebook’s Instant Articles, which is the entire point of it. Several publishing companies are already partnered with Facebook’s Instant Articles, including The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, Vox Media, The New York Times and National Geographic just to name a few.