Clicked on the Twitter tab, and Woah!! What happened there? Why do I see so many hearts out there?

And then noticed. The “Favorite” button has been replaced with the “Heart” one.

Twitter’s official blog says,

We are changing our star icon for favorites to a heart and we’ll be calling them likes.

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.

“

The biggest reason might be to make twitter appeal to newcomers as the website is struggling to increase its user base.

“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.”

Sounds Legit. Doesn’t it?

But then change is difficult to adapt. Especially for an audience that had got used to the “Favorite” button.

Here are some of the funny responses to the “outrage” over Twitter and “bring back the favorite”

Jokes and outrage aside, this new update by Twitter is another push towards gaining more foothold into new markets and user bases. Their focus on helping ease the “migration” of users from comparatively popular and easier social networks like Facebook or even Instagram (Incidentally, also belongs to Facebook).

However, I guess Twitter missed the part that for many of the users, the “favorite” button was sort of a bookmarking tool. For many, it was also sort of a conversation full stop. I guess, Twitter thought favorite= likes!

It will take time for people to get used to this new addition. As a Brand one has to appreciate their effort to try experimenting, as a user It’ll take time to get used to it.

To conclude, (This tweet does it better than I can)