The ambiguity of web 2.0′s vocabulary
Posted: August 8th, 2011 | 1 Comment »Recent events have shown how inadequate the standard web 2.0 vocabulary can be. See a few examples below, from liking someone’s death, to liking the Oslo bombing, to Amy Winehouse passing away being “most popular”.

Seen on Facebook, “RIP Amy Winehouse, XXX likes this”. The like is quite ambigious. Is the person happy for the death, or just adding up his/her thoughts on the RIP?

Seen on YouTube: “Oslo bomb attacks, liked by XXX”. This one is not even ambiguous. Just a standard term coming short because of the context.

Seen on CNN: Amy Winehouse’s death is “most popular”. Of course it is the article, and not the death itself. But again the standard vocabulary shows its limits.
These are a few examples found recently, and I have been seeing such mishaps over and over again in the past months. Did you find some too? And by the way, what could replace “like” and still work in those contexts?




Concerning the “like”, I recenlty saw “recommend” on a news article. Why not…