Twitter changes favorites to hearts!
The internet mob is sharpening their pitchforks and preparing to revolt after Twitter announce they are changing ‘stars’ or better known as favorites to hearts. Twitter claims the change is to make the social network less confusing and “that at times the star could be confusing, especially to newcomers.” I’ve been a Twitter user since early 2012 so I’ve come to know the site very well, so I cannot say if users would find ‘stars’ confusing or not.
You can say a lot with a heart. Introducing a new way to show how you feel on Twitter: https://t.co/WKBEmORXNW pic.twitter.com/G4ZGe0rDTP
— Twitter (@twitter) November 3, 2015
Twitter ‘hearts’ are now on all their properties; Twitter, Vine, and Periscope where hearts first appeared for the company. The change is starting to appear for most users now on iOS, Android, the web, TweetDeck, and tweets across devices and the web. Twitter is making users show an emotional connection to a tweet by ‘hearting’ it. Before a favorite wasn’t emotionally connected, but instead something akin to how browsers helped you save web pages you frequented. I used the favorite button similar to how I used it in Chrome: I would ‘fav’ a tweet to save it for later or show that I’ve read it and liked it.
The emotional connection to a tweet does make it easier for users to understand that they’ve ‘hearted’ a tweet. Facebook ‘like’ button has become popular because of the emotional connection and how easy it was to like over leaving a comment or even sharing it.
The change to ‘hearts’ comes after Twitter announced earnings along with statistics which show little to no growth. I’m not sure if changing to hearts will make more users sign up to the service, but at this point Twitter needs to try anything and everything to spur growth to keep investors happy.
Tell us in the comments below what you think about ‘hearts,’ and if you’d want ‘stars’ to come back!