Some news we want to share with our friend on Facebook are tragic—natural disasters, crimes, social inequality, horrible deeds, etc.—so ‘liking’ isn’t an appropriate thing to do with it. DDB Worldwide has come up with a great solution, the ‘I Care’ Button, which is already beta-tested on the new MTV Voices hub along with traditional buttons. The idea is the same: once you find some resonating information about social problems that are really worth sharing, click the ‘I Care’ button with a heart near the piece and the text, video or image appears on the user’s wall. The new button is created to “give people a way to show support for a wide variety of things such as: causes, social issues, charities, even government.”
Photo: A snapshot from the www.voices.mtv.co.uk page with the ‘I Care’ button
“The ‘I Care’ button seeks to serve as an appropriate complement to the «Like» button and can be easily leveraged by individuals and organizations alike to exhibit and inspire social activism,» explains Matt Eastwood, Chief Creative Officer of DDB New York. “Now people will be able to do more with a button than just ‘Like’ something. They’ll be able to say ‘I care’ about important topics ranging from child labor laws, to natural disasters, to world poverty, to name a few.»
The agency allows all bloggers and website owners, not just its clients, to use the new button—to get the code, they are asked to register at www.icare-movement.com. DDB also says it is planning to customize share options of other social-media networks (Google+ in particular) soon. Since the idea behind the new button is “connecting people through issues and gain awareness to create action,” it is expected to go beyond mere sharing—potentially, it allows blog and site owners to encourage its audience to donate to the cause, sign petitions and support movements. The agency also plans to collect the most cared about topics worldwide, the pieces which generated most ‘I Care’ clicks—the new extension is to arrive soon.
In September 2011, Facebook announced its Facebook Gestures, which also allow users to not only ‘like’ content, but ‘listen,’ ‘want,’ or ‘read,’ etc.