Twitter is going to be introducing reactions to the social media app experience—a lot like Facebook reactions. I had an inkling that something like this was going to happen especially after this tweet in March about Twitter testing something like it out.
To put more context to it, a Twitter user mentioned in March that he was part of a survey rom Twitter testing out a “new reaction system” that might be added. However, Twitter was also thinking about introducing the downvoting—but thankfully it doesn’t seem like it was a very popular option.
Now it seems that we’ve gotten more confirmation that it’s going to be a thing real soon thanks to researcher Jane Manchun Wong. According to her tweet, Twitter will add reactions like “cheer”, “hmm”, “sad” and “haha” to go with the “like” reaction.
The feature is currently still in testing for at least a couple weeks now. Wong’s teaser is also not the conformed look as “likes”, “cheer” and “sad” all have the same heart icon next to them.
I’m not a huge fan of Facebook’s reactions as it seems so in-genuine at times. I prefer the current Twitter’s simple features which only includes liking the tweet or commenting/quote tweet if you have anything else to say. But as many more big accounts like brand and celebrities have chosen to limit comments sometimes, reactions could be an opportunity for more people to react to a tweet other than writing in a comment.
Twitter has also introduced Spaces—their own Clubhouse-like live audio chat platform. You can also join a Space using a web browser without needing the app installed.
