Twitter Dumps 'Favorite' Button For Heart-Shaped 'Like'
By Marisa Fusinski
DETROIT (CBS Detroit) - Twitter has dropped the "Favorite" option for something new. Well, it's new to Twitter.
Seemingly all-of-a-sudden and without ceremony, the little star button disappeared, late Tuesday morning, from tweets on the booming social media platform — replaced by a heart.
A short release announcing the change was put out at 10 a.m.
"We hope you like what you see on Twitter and Vine today: hearts!" it reads. "We are changing our star icon for favorites to a heart and we'll be calling them likes. We want to make Twitter easier and more rewarding to use, and we know that at times the star could be confusing, especially to newcomers. 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."
Reaction (which has been pouring in in the form of hearts as well as comments over the last hour) has been mixed, trending on the side of discontent.
98.7 Amp Radio Webmaster Annie Scaramuzzino was puzzled by the change, saying she thinks a heart more implies "love."
CBS Detroit Web Producer George Fox agreed."It's odd to make a heart a like icon," he said. "I feel like they went heavier with that...Am I ready to take this Tweet to the heart zone?"
Facebook, which pioneered the "like" button, raised eyebrows in September when its founder announced the platform would be adding a "dislike" button, or something similar. Nothing has come of that to date.
Twitter users: Do you like the change? Comment below.
