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Twitter ditched its stars in favor of hearts to \u201clike\u201d Tweets<\/a>, and now, to get more people using Twitter, it is considering\u00a0replacing its iconic \u201cRetweet\u201d\u00a0button. TechCrunch has learned and confirmed that Twitter has been testing a new version of its mobile app that drops the current Retweeting icon, along with the arrow for replying to a tweet, and respectively replaces them with a circular icon\u00a0for \u201csharing\u201d options and a speech bubble:<\/p>\n These are the current\u00a0icons, for reference:<\/p>\n Twitter confirmed the test to us, adding that it was trying to see how\u00a0it changed behavior on the site.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re testing new icons on Tweets to evaluate how this impacts the way that people use Twitter,\u201d a spokesperson said in an email.<\/p>\n With the\u00a0new sharing button, the current two choices of \u201cRetweet\u201d and \u201cQuote Tweet\u201d will be augmented by two more options. As noticed by Twitter user @lasersushi<\/a> and appearing here in German, the new menu is\u00a0Retweet, Quote Tweet, Send by Direct Message, and Share Tweet (taking you to the usual menu to share that you get today).<\/p>\n This is not the first time that Twitter has mulled replacing retweets with sharing. Back in 2014<\/a>, it also toyed with the idea, although, it seems, without a change to its\u00a0iconography.<\/p>\n The retweet has been a core part of the Twitter experience from early on<\/a>, as a way to share content you\u2019ve seen on the service more easily.\u00a0Twitter has made moves to update it over time to encourage more use of it. For example,\u00a0in June it started to let users retweet themselves<\/a>.<\/p>\n Why test out a new way to share? Twitter\u2019s test\u00a0to\u00a0roll up and expand sharing options points to how the company, which currently has 313 million monthly active users, has continued to try to figure out better ways of making the service more mainstream and less full of its own jargon.<\/p>\n Critics say that Twitter-specific lingo and special way of doing things puts off new\u00a0or infrequent tweeters\u00a0from using the service more\u00a0regularly, or maybe ever coming to the platform in the first place. Specifically, there\u00a0is some confusion among some users around the icons on the mobile apps.<\/p>\n And so Twitter is looking to more established social media norms for the solution. Just as Twitter moved\u00a0to a heart icon from a star to get\u00a0closer to the\u00a0universal term of\u00a0\u201clike\u201d (versus \u201cfavorite\u201d) as a way of\u00a0endorsing something you see on social media; now it\u2019s seeing if \u201csharing\u201d gets more people to be more social with Twitter content.<\/p>\n @panzer<\/a> Retweet \u2013 OUT; Share \u2013 IN. pic.twitter.com\/4HTV4GxyU0<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Roy Sheffi (@roysheffi) December 16, 2016<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n It\u2019s the same reason Twitter would change the reply arrow to a speech bubble: Twitter is looking for more understandable iconography, and having too many arrows was, again, confusing to anyone less familiar with Twitter beyond very regular, existing users. Having\u00a0a speech bubble icon\u00a0may also prove to remind\u00a0people to react more frequently, boosting engagement \u2014 a key metric that Twitter, as an ad-based service, needs to grow (especially since user growth has largely been flat).<\/p>\n It\u2019s interesting, incidentally, to see how Direct Messaging has been downgraded a bit in this new test version. It\u2019s still there as an option, but you now have to go into the sharing menu to access it rather than directly through the envelope icon. It makes us\u00a0wonder just how much\u00a0that (still pretty new<\/a>) DM icon is\u00a0being used; and also whether Twitter may have something else up its sleeve with DMs. (Perhaps the long-fabled<\/a>, standalone Direct Messaging app?)<\/p>\n Direct messaging is definitely an area that Twitter is focusing on, although it\u2019s hard to guess what the current thinking might be for where it will ultimately go. Or even if there is a cohesive, greater strategy at play, considering reports\u00a0that it apparently killed off<\/a> another standalone messaging project in India.<\/p>\n Unsurprisingly, among some of the power users\u00a0seeing the new version, at\u00a0least some don\u2019t really understand why Twitter is tweaking.<\/p>\n they changed the retweet icon??? literally why pic.twitter.com\/zy9YldsV1b<\/a><\/p>\n![\"screen-shot-2016-12-16-at-12-43-46\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/RSSPoster_PRO\/cache\/d9db7_screen-shot-2016-12-16-at-12-43-46.png?resize=598%2C202\")
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