From bookmarking a tweet to expressing approval, the star button allowed the user to keep a tab on the tweets they go through, now replaced by a heart.
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“I loved the faves…it was like someone was being all ‘out of all the tweets THIS was my favorite!'” another lamented. Switching button labels could prompt people to click “like” more often, thus boosting engagement.
However, it’s quite the change of tactics for a company with such a longstanding feature.
Describing the heart as “a universal symbol that resonates across languages, cultures, and time zones”, Kumar said: “The heart is more expressive, enabling you to convey a range of emotions and easily connect with people”. That’s hogwash; “like” isn’t more overtly positive than “favorite” used to be.
Twitter has dropped the “Favorite” option for something new.
But there’s no reason Twitter could’ve added other emoji besides Hearts.
A poll was posted on the website, shortly after making the change, seeking users’ opinions regarding the move, by NPR’s All Tech Account.
However, it seems not everyone is so keen on the new symbol.
Instagram, the photo-sharing app bought by the social networking giant, Facebook in the year 2012 also uses heart-shaped icons for users to like the pictures.
Those people might be in for a surprise.
Social media users are known to resist changes to their favorite platforms so it’s no surprise that Twitter users are sounding off about losing their gold star. Maybe a different batch of 50 people would have different feelings. “I fav’d a lot and now don’t want to”.
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OK, that’s not exactly how the stars work-users fave tweets they like, yes, but they also use the star to acknowledge a tweet without responding and to save a tweet to refer to later. A few called for Twitter to reverse the decision. “Hearts are emotionally charged, and could well put off the very users they are now desperate to engage with”.
