The choice of a heart icon is part of Twitter‘s attempt to make everyone “love” the service.
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Twitter is also rolling out the heart icon on Vine as well, and the company insists that in tests people loved it.
The design and name change might seem insignificant, but stars and favorites have been unique to the Twitter platform since its early days.
Whyyyyyy, Twitter? Why are you messing with a good thing?
Hearts are rolling out today to Twitter for iOS and Android, Twitter.com, TweetDeck, and Twitter for Windows 10, as well as the Vine Android app and website.
However the swap has proved controversial, with users branding it “outrageous” and “lame” and “the final nail in Twitter’s coffin”.
Users will now click a heart icon to like a tweet instead of clicking the star icon to mark a tweet as a favorite.
But there’s no reason Twitter could’ve added other emoji besides Hearts. And Twitter users sure have plenty to say about that. Kumar said the heart “is a universal symbol that resonates across languages, cultures and time zones”. Yes, it reverts the heart icon to the old star, but its developers admitted that it might not be ideal.
Previously, you couldn’t “like” tweets on Twitter like you can on Facebook posts. It can easily connect with people too.
The hope presumably is that by using a simple so universally associated with positivity, Twitter can begin to make its interactions more meaningful.
Why this matters: Twitter is making itself more like Facebook and Instagram in an effort to be a more welcoming place to newcomers, who are familiar with the shorthand on other social networks but not with Twitter’s freaky insider language.
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A Twitter “poll” – another new feature to boost user interest – found 88 per cent preferred “favourites” and only 12 per cent “likes”, with a few 28,000 users voting.
