QUOTE.fm is a platform built to recommend texts worth reading. Right now it’s possible to award little hearts below a recommendation, Likes, in the same way we’re used to from Facebook.

Facebook incorporates status updates made up of freely chosen content like text, pictures, videos and various others. QUOTE.fm differs from Facebook in the essential concept of linking each recommended text to a certain message: This right here is good, so read it, it’s going to be worth your time.

What does a Like really communicate? On the one hand you could click the heart because you agree that a text is good, on the other hand you could merely be trying to convey that you think it’s a good quote. The latter directly contradicts the intention we have with QUOTE.fm. It’s not about quotes, but the texts they were taken from. So why should you like a text without agreeing that it’s worth being recommended? Sure, one could argue that a Like acts as a light version of a Recommendation. However, this leaves things unnecessarily complex, which is why we’ve decided to wipe out Likes altogether.

The one thing that does remain are Recommendations. If there’s a text you like, go ahead and recommend it. Perhaps with the very same extract, perhaps with a completely different one. It’s entirely up to you. A Recommendation’s a Recommendation.

We’ll eventually come up with a new version of “Like”, which will be integrated into the Read-section as a way of favoriting texts you’d like to mark for later reading without necessarily recommending them to followers.

As so often, less is more. Some of you will surely miss the function, still we hope you’ll eventually get used to its absence. We’re certain that it’ll simplify the platform by a great deal.