Twitter gets a like button
Twitter switched out its star tags for hearts Tuesday, in what it hopes will be a user-friendly change to the struggling microblog service, the company said.
The change in the icon used to mark another user’s tweet from a star – meaning “favorite” – to a heart – meaning “like” – brings Twitter in line with more popular social media services like Facebook and Instagram, which allow users to “like” posts with a thumbs-up and a heart, respectively.
“We want to make Twitter easier and more rewarding to use, and we know that at times the star could be confusing, especially for newcomers,” product manager Akarshan Kumar wrote in an official blog post.
Twitter is battling sluggish user growth that slowed to just over 1 per cent in the last quarter and has put the company under pressure from shareholders.
The icon switch is the latest change in pursuit of new customers by new chief executive and co-founder Jack Dorsey.
In recent weeks, Dorsey has introduced new, curated content feeds to the sometimes chaotic Twitter experience, and fired 8 per cent of the company’s workforce in the name of “streamlining.”