You can no longer favourite a tweet. You can love it however but Twitter’s latest change isn’t exactly loved…
Twitter has only gone and done it. They’ve ditched the ‘favourite’ star button and they’ve replaced it with a ‘like’ heart button – but is this really a step forward for tweeting?
Time will tell but the reaction so far hasn’t exactly been met with complete positivity. I can see why this move makes sense (kind of…). It’s now easier than ever to express your love for a particular tweet using the heart symbol and for tweeting newbies, it’s clearly less complicated. But in dropping the star it seems that Twitter has gone down the route of not only Instagram but Facebook too. Twitter has always had a real identity of its own but it may have just lost some of that with this change. And that’s not the only issue…
The other issue here is Twitter’s reasoning for the change. They described the heart as more expressive but is it really? Say BBC News tweet a story about something negative, perhaps a world disaster or something negative content-wise. Do we really want to ‘love/like’ that post? The good thing about favouriting something is that you were non-committal about why you had done so. It could be because you found the piece interesting, you liked the content despite the subject and, more than anything else, it was a fantastic bookmarking tool. Anything you ‘like’ will of course be bookmarked but how many of us used to favourite something we didn’t actually like/approve of? Twitter has been cutthroat with their decision to remove the tool which had been a staple of the social channel for many years now – I’m not so sure it was a good move.
It’s an interesting time to do this considering Facebook had been quite open about introducing a ‘dislike’ button before canning the idea completely. Twitter, in recent months, have introduced a whole host of changes to help newcomers come around to tweeting. The poll, for example, is one such tool but none more divisive that its latest change.
Personally, I’m going to miss the favourite button. I will use the like button but gone are the days of bookmarking those tweets you don’t exactly love. Sorry Twitter – this seems somewhat of an own goal.
What are your thoughts on the change? Do you love it? Hate it? Or are you not that fussed?! Tell us in the comments below or have your say on Twitter (@SoaringWW) – we may just ‘like’ your tweet…