Twitter’s planning to overhaul its Favourite button

Twitter is planning to overhaul its Favourite button, instead replacing it with a more ‘lightweight’ Like or Star button similar to Facebook’s own simple acknowledgment or endorsement feature, reports V3.

V3 reports that a handful of Twitter users have, earlier this week, began to notice the terms Like and Star when hovering over tweets, rather than the accustomed Favourite option.

Twitter’s Favourite button has been part of the service for the last three years or so, however, its ambiguity has resulted in it being underused – often as a private endorsement or read it later tool.

Speaking at the Internet Advertising Bureau’s conference in London earlier this week, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo confirmed that the company wanted to offer a more ‘lightweight’ method for its users to highlight tweets, and therefore increase engagement.

“We’re testing some alternative terms for favourite. Favourite feels a little bit too heavy weight so we’re testing some lighter weight terms.

“Engagement begets engagement. The lighter weight and more frictionless you make it to engage, the more engagement you’ll get.”

At the conference, Costolo also revealed that half a billion tweets are now recorded daily from Twitter’s 140 million active users.

ClickZ points out that a new Facebook-style Like button could help Twitter develop an additional revenue stream. A Twitter Like button could be a “step towards another social ad option, similar to Facebook’s Sponsored Stories”. ClickZ even suggested that Twitter could begin to display the “number of Likes/Shares within ads, à la Google+”.