Twitter just slaughtered the favorite

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It’s official, Twitter is killing off the favorites star in favor of hearts.

Sound familiar?

The company said on Tuesday that the “favorite” and the accompanying star is history. Now, the “favorite” will be swapped with a “like”, nixing the star for a heart.

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

Wondering why Twitter decided to make this move? Apparently it was done to attract new users to the service. Here’s what they had to say in a recent blog post:

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.

Here’s the full press release from Twitter:

We hope you like what you see on Twitter and Vine today: hearts!

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.

You’ve embraced hearts in a big way on Periscope, and we’re delighted to bring them to Twitter and Vine, making them the common language for our global community.

Starting today, you’ll see hearts on Twitter for iOS and Android, twitter.com, TweetDeck, Twitter for Windows 10, and on Tweets across the Internet, as well as on the Vine Android app and website. You’ll see them soon on Vine for iOS and Twitter for Mac. Tap the heart and see what happens!

Kevin Raposo

Kevin is KnowTechie's founder and executive editor. With over 15 years of blogging experience in the tech industry, Kevin has transformed what was once a passion project into a full-blown tech news publication. Shoot him an email at kevin@knowtechie.com.