Twitter changes ‘favourite’ star to heart-shaped ‘like’

Twitter has officially killed off its 'favourite' button and has replaced it with an Instagram-style heart-shaped 'like' button. The tiny star icon was the platform's primary way of signalling agreement and support.

The company said on Tuesday it was replacing 'favourites' with 'likes', to be represented in its apps and on the web by red heart icons. The changes, which also apply to Twitter-owned Vine, represent the company's latest effort to simplify the user experience as it looks to attract new users.

"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," Twitter said in an official blog post. "You might like a lot of things, but not everything can be your favourite."

Twitter's 'favourite' button has been around since the early days of the social network and pre-dates Facebook's own 'like' button.

Twitter has been experimenting with 'likes' for some time. The social network began testing the feature on Android over the summer and later expanded it to Apple's iOS.

Last week, Twitter had announced a disappointing revenue forecast and reported slower user growth than expected, pushing shares of the social media firm down about 13%.

Twitter had 320 million average active monthly users in the third quarter, up from 316 million in the prior quarter, missing analysts' expectations of 324 million.

What do you prefer, hearts or stars?