Twitter's Quietly Testing More Emoji Reactions

A couple weeks ago, Twitter threw its users off a touch by replacing stars, that is "Favorites", with new hearts, which represent "Likes." People complained, as people tend to do, some bringing up good points: "liking" is for Facebook and hearts are for Instagram, and clicking a heart seems to convey something different — and less appropriate — than clicking a star in most cases. As an apparent solution, Twitter is testing other emoji reactions.

Twitter is being coy about the whole thing, responding to requests for information with, appropriately, a mouth-covering emoji and nothing more. News of the test first surfaced via Twitter user Ninji, who posted screenshots of a pop-up menu that appears above the "heart" icon; more emoji options are located inside.

The feature isn't available to just anyone, however; according to a later tweet by the user, this is a "dev-only feature in [the] iOS app", and beyond that, the feature is incomplete — while the menu with the emoji appears, selecting one causes the menu to close and the user merely ends up +1'ing the hearts rather than adding an extra emoji.

Whether the feature ends up making its way into the official Twitter apps or is scrapped is yet to be seen. Users are polarized in their opinions about it, with some feeling that it is "dumb" and a pointless change, while others are excited at the prospect of reacting with something other than a star or a heart.

SOURCE: Mashable