Twitter made a huge announcement on Nov. 3, by replacing the "favorite" button with a heart-shaped "like" button to its feeds. The introduction tweet was captioned, "You can say a lot with a heart." Including a heart image, this is going to replace the previous star-shaped "favorite" button with the same function. Since then, netizens have taken it to twitter to express their mixed reactions with regards to the sudden change.
Twitter stated that prior to the change they made, a survey with the new button - resulting in the stats of twitter users, about 74 percent approved of the heart, 10 percent favored the heart and 16 percent have no preference. Although a lot of angry users have twitted against the change, the company saw this change as an innovation and something new to bring to the users.
Lately, news about the company's finances currently operating at a loss of $132 million after tax, and this change is an immediate solution, bringing change so that users would stay and keep using the site. Executive of ad agencies have mixed reactions also, with Big Spaceship's Victor Pineiro saying, "How far will they risk offending existing users to court a broader audience? And ultimately, will bending over backwards to gain a new audience alienate the core and dilute their product enough to make it little more than a smaller Facebook?"
But some people did put their faith in good change, as Chris Tuff of 22squared said, "Because the heart sign is more instinctual to a human emotion, more people will likely press this as opposed to the star symbol. Although it seems like a tiny change, I do believe this is a good change since Twitter is trying to increase stickiness, which this will help."
The change may have gathered a more distinct reaction than the company may have been expecting. Twitter's co-founder Jack Dorsey made quite an entrance going back to Twitter and initiating this change. He and COO Adam Bain give the company the revival it needs.
