My two cents: there’s something messy about hearts/recommends. Heart icons seem to say “Wow, Poster, I love this”; The text Recommend seems to say “Hey, Followers, you should have a look at this”.
Many times I don’t like specially a piece, but I know that some of my followers would like it, so I hit the heart icon. When I like specially some piece, I go ahead and share it in Twitter and/or Facebook.
This hierarchy is not clear in Medium. I think people don’t click the heart icon feeling they are “endorsing the post” or something like that. Many twitterers put in their bios “RTs are not endorsement” to avoid this confusion.
I see a hierarchy in my activities in Medium:
- I don’t like it -> I don’t read till the end;
- I like it -> I go through all the post;
- I think someone would like it -> I recommend;
- I loved it -> I share outside Medium.
It should help if some kind of this was clearly offered by Medium itself.
P.S. Remember the rebellion when Twitter changed their star icon to a heart one? They caused people to be pissed by the mess this change created. Star was clearly “Favorite”, heart was more like Facebook’s “likes”.
