I created a poll to gauge how people use Favorites right now. As FollowFriday recommendations begin to dwindle and decrease in importance because of spam bots, I believe that people will turn to Favorites to highlight tweets that shine.
In case you are not familiar with the “Favorite” designation on Twitter, it occurs on the Web application when you mouse over the right site of the tweet and click on the little star. It’ll turn golden once you click on it. I Favorited the tweet below by Veronica McGregor (@VeronicaMcG).
My poll of Twitter users shows that the top two reasons people mark a tweet as a Favorite are:
A) to “bookmark” it for future use (41%)
B) to “reward” the tweet (41%)
In the number three spot is a reason that I think will increase in use, to actively share Favorites with friends/followers (8%).
Sharing Favorite tweets with your friends/followers
Popular blogger and tech head Robert Scoble (@scobleizer) is using Favstar to share his Fav list as a record of awesome tweets with his followers and also in lieu of “FollowFriday” lists.
You can see my list of Twitter followers that I’ve Favorited here.
Personally, I use Favorites as bookmarks or as temporary reminders when I am mobile to click through and review linked to posts. I once used Favorites to reward funny tweets, but I don’t do that as much now.
Using Favorites to “reward” others
There are several mini communities of tweeters that have their tweets ranked based on the number of Favorites they receive.
Favrd
Favrd is a US-based site and is exclusively funny tweets. To get into the Favrd system, you have to register on their site using your Twitter username and password (it’s safe). Then, if someone who has registered favorites one of your tweets, you get a credit on the Favrd site, in hopes of making the prestigious Leaderboard. The site’s logo is a Rooster/cock and that covers the subject of 80% of the tweets *cymbals*.
This tweet from Tim Siedell (@badbanana) shows everyone who marked it as a Favorite (from Favrd site).
Favotter
Favotter is a Japanese-based site but also has an English portion of the site.
Favstar
Favstar is a newer site and has more features and views than Favrd and Favotter. However, some of the views require a minimum number of Favorites before a user will appear.
Mark this blog post tweet with a nice shiny gold star Favorite if you like what you’ve read, want to bookmark it for future reference, or want to share it with friends.
Do you think Favorites will become the new talk of the town? Send me an “@” on Twitter (@jesseluna) or comment below.