Iconic Innovation: No More Stars, Hearts Are Replacing Favorites On Twitter


Twitter is changing one of its most iconic features. For me, it's a huge step in the right direction.

Favorites, which have typically been represented by stars, are now becoming "likes" and gets replaced in the form of hearts, the company announced today on its blog post. The hearts will also appear on Vine's apps and website.

Likes will work similar way as favorites; hearts will appear where the stars once did underneath tweets. The "favorites" section in your user profile, which shows tweets that you have favorited, will also be renamed "Likes." 
The change is meant to "make Twitter easier and more rewarding to use," according to product manager Akarshan Kumar, who says the star can be be confusing for new users.
"You might like a lot of things, but not everything can be your favorite. The heart, in contrast, is a universal symbol that resonates across languages, cultures, and time zones. The heart is more expressive, enabling you to convey a range of emotions and easily connect with people. And in our tests, we found that people loved it."


Twitter has been experimenting with hearts for some time. The social network began testing the feature on Android over the summer and later expanded it to iOS.

Whether the change will make Twitter easier to understand for newcomers remains to be seen.

The hearts will begin to show up on Tuesday in TweetDeck and on Twitter's website, as well on iOS, Android and Windows 10 apps. It will also be rolling out to Vine's Android app and website; Vine's iOS app and Twitter for Mac, will get the hearts "soon."

No comments:

Post a Comment