You may have just received a Twitter notification that someone has “liked” a tweet of yours, and momentarily wondered if Facebook and Twitter had merged. Well, not yet. But Twitter is revamping the tool formerly known as Favourites.
Gone is the Favourite feature and the corresponding yellow star icon. Replacing it as of Tuesday morning is Likes, with a new read heart icon. The change appears to be largely cosmetic – likes will not rebroadcast a tweet to a wider audience, but will let the original tweeter know you liked their tweet, a notification will appear in their mentions stream, and you’ll be able to access the tweets you’ve liked from the Twitter menu.
According to Twitter, people found the Favourites tool confusing, and they’re hoping Likes (and hearts) will be easier to understand.
“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,” wrote Akarshan Kumar, a product manager with Twitter, in a blog. “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.”
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
Hearts are coming to both Twitter and Vine. They’re available now on Twitter for iOS and Android, twitter.com, TweetDeck, Twitter for Windows 10 and the Twitter web interface, as well as the Vine Android app and website. They’ll be coming soon to Vine for iOS and Twitter for Mac.