The favorite button is dead, and it's time to move the hell on, Twitter kids.
On Tuesday, the company announced it's scrapping the tradition of “favorites,” which users choose by clicking a small star icon, with “likes,” which users will choose by clicking a small heart icon à la Facebook and Tumblr.
The change will also affect Vine, also owned by Twitter, in an effort to make both platforms less of a riddle to navigate.
In a blog post on the site, product manager Akarshan Kumar explained,
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… The heart, in contrast, is a universal symbol that resonates across languages, cultures, and time zones… And in our tests, we found that people loved it.
Where Facebook likes generally serve to express approval of posts, Twitter likes, just as favorites before them and Tumblr likes, serve the same purpose with the added bonus of bookmarking posts for easy locating later on.
The change goes into effect today, and Twitter is optimistic users will prefer hearts to stars.
According to The Verge, tests showed users who were exposed to the hearts early used them more often than stars.
Hearts are a go-to symbol for expression on enough major social media sites that Twitter's switch will likely stir little, if any, backlash.
Regardless, let us bow our heads in a moment of silence for our fallen brother, fav.
Citations: Twitter officially kills off favorites and replaces them with likes (The Verge), Hearts on Twitter (Twitter)
