Twitter is killing the favorite

Goodbye stars, hello hearts.

Twitter said on Tuesday that the "favorite" and the accompanying star would be a thing of the past. 

Instead, the "favorite" will be replaced with "like," and the long-service star would be replaced by a heart.

The move comes as Twitter pushes to attract new people to the service, something the company acknowledged in a blog post announcing the change: 

We are changing our star icon for favorites to a heart and we'll be calling them likes. 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. You might like a lot of things, but not everything can be your favorite.

Hearts, of course, are not only used to signify that you like a photo on Instagram, but also that you like stream on Periscope, Twitter's live-streaming app.  

Here's the full press release from Twitter:

We hope you like what you see on Twitter and Vine today: hearts!

We are changing our star icon for favorites to a heart and we'll be calling them likes. 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. You might like a lot of things, but not everything can be your favorite.

The heart, in contrast, is a universal symbol that resonates across languages, cultures, and time zones. The heart is more expressive, enabling you to convey a range of emotions and easily connect with people. And in our tests, we found that people loved it.

 You've embraced hearts in a big way on Periscope, and we're delighted to bring them to Twitter and Vine, making them the common language for our global community.

Starting today, you'll see hearts on Twitter for iOS and Android, twitter.com, TweetDeck, Twitter for Windows 10, and on Tweets across the Internet, as well as on the Vine Android app and website. You'll see them soon on Vine for iOS and Twitter for Mac. Tap the heart and see what happens!