From a Wired article about the challenges facing Twitter as it tries to reach the mass market, a look at one of the tweaks they are testing:
The latest of these smaller efforts appears to be replacing the traditional star used to “favorite” tweets with a heart. While it’s a limited trial for now, the tweak already brought out the requisite grumping from Twitter’s diehard fans.
The concern is misguided for a few reasons. Hearts are intrinsically different from stars, sure, but they’re also much clearer in what they represent. A star can be a superlative, yes, but also a bookmark or a brush-off. A heart carries no such ambiguities. It says I like this in a way that someone who has never heard of Twitter can easily intuit. More important, it provides a clear payoff.
“Because Twitter has ‘retweet’ and ‘favorite’ as options, you’re able to choose,” says Ian Burns, Group Creative Director at digital agency Huge. “I think it’s the idea that every piece of work you put into Twitter can pay off in ways that you can visualize and numerate. You can see how well you’re doing . . . I think if it pays off in that way, then it could help.”
Besides which, switching from stars to hearts demonstrably works! Or it did three years ago, at least, for Airbnb, which according to a Fast Company report saw engagement climb 30 percent after a similar star-to-heart transition. That number must look mighty attractive to Twitter, which last quarter saw its U.S. monthly active users grow just 9 percent year over year. (Users and engagement aren’t apples to apples, but one certainly feeds into the other).
