Phil Nelson A Comparative Analysis Of The Differing Approaches Twitter and Facebook Take To “Share” Buttons And What It Might Say, Philosophically Speaking, About Each As A Company
Visually, the “Share” and “Tweet” buttons are very similar, and are structured identically.
On the code-side, however, they are very much the product of two different companies with, I would argue, different outlooks on the web as a whole and HTML specifically.
Facebook’s “Share” Button
There is no such thing as a share_url attribute in any published version of HTML. Facebook just made it up because they felt like it, and it was the easiest way for them to do what they wanted. They’re also mis-using the type attribute, here. type should be a mime-type string, as specified in the HTML documentation, not whatever random data you decide will be helpful.
It would be possible to see these as harmless and (possibly) clever hacks, but this is not a startup based in a garage, this is a billion-dollar company with hundreds of employees. Philosophically it speaks to Facebook’s general lack of regard for the internet as a whole: Facebook does what it wants, and you can go fuck yourself if it bugs you. In other words: Who has two thumbs, a $100 billion valuation, and doesn’t give a shit about your web standards pedantry? This guy.
Twitter’s “Tweet” Button
Twitter uses the HTML5 data attributes, which were created for specifically this purpose, which is embedding useful information in HTML without having to make up your own attributes. As a result, Twitter’s code is not only valid and logical, it’s ahead of the curve. Philosophically this says that Twitter considered the ramifications of this a bit more than Facebook has. This code will be embedded in millions of webpages, many of which will never be updated, so it matters in a big way that it be done right. Yes, the HTML5-style data attributes are a little bit too new for some people to get behind, but today isn’t the only thing that matters. Tomorrow is pretty important, too.
In total, what these buttons say about their companies is pretty simple: Twitter cares about being a good web citizen. Facebook? Not so much.
Update 28 October 2010: Changed conclusion text for clarity.
Pantonemime
Your Extra Future Word-A-Day Calendar Entry For 25 October 2010.
Pan•tone•mime
[pan-tohn-mahym]
noun, verb, -mimed, -mim•ing
Describing a color through the use of physical gestures.
(with help from Peter Flaschner)
Tony Wilson’s Headstone
Factory Records founder Anthony H Wilson died in August 2007. Just over three years later, a memorial headstone designed collaboratively by Wilson’s long-term associates Peter Saville and Ben Kelly with Paul Barnes and Matt Robertson, was unveiled in The Southern Cemetery in Chorlton-Cum-Hardy, Manchester.
Lukas Mathis’ Take on Apple’s ‘Back To The Mac’ Special Event
Too many good points to quote, just do yourself a favor and read it.
Spinner Rage
Panic, purveyors of fine Macintosh softwares, provide a free fix to the nightmare that is Ajaxload.info’s OSX-type spinner.
US Library of Congress: Copyright Is Destroying Historic Audio
From the you’re-telling-us dept.
The report also highlights the problems posed by the rather complicated history of US copyright law. “All U.S. recordings, both commercially released and unpublished, created before February 15, 1972, are protected by a complex network of disparate state civil, criminal, and common laws,” the study explains. The consequence is that all sounds recordings made before 1972 will have their copyright expire in 2067 – 95 years after the placement of these recordings under federal protection in 1972. This means that the oldest sound recordings in the US dating from 1890, will only enter the public domain after 177 years.
GameBoy Emulation in JavaScript
A fascinating look at an ongoing project by Imran Nazar, creating a GameBoy emulator in JS. Worth a read for programmers of any stripe.
CBC Bans Use of Creative Commons Music On Podcasts
I’m not quite sure how this is legal, if it is an official policy, or if someone just let a cat out of a bag. Regardless, it’s both pathetic on the part of the agents CBC goes through and sad for every musician who knows better.
Spelunky For Xbox Live Progress Report
Just a reminder to you, the Extra Future reader, that one of my favorite games of last year is coming to Xbox Live Arcade and it looks great.
Startup Tools
A fairly exhaustive list of tools for startups and individuals who live like startups. Bug-tracking, performance monitoring, analytics, life, the universe, everything. via @kenseto.
You’re Stealing it Wrong: 30 Years of Inter-Pirate Battles
Historian Jason Scott walks through the many-years story of software piracy and touches on the tired debates before going into a completely different direction – the interesting, informative, hilarious and occasionally obscene world of inter-pirate-group battles. A multi-media extravaganza of threats, CSI-level accusations and evidence trails, decades of insider lingo, and demonstrations of how the more things change, the more they still have to keep their ratios up.
Jason Scott’s talks are all required listening if you’re into the real history of the internet and the social aspects of computing. Link via Andy Baio.