Twitter's buttons are getting a new look, with share counts seeming to go the way of the manual retweet.
Twitter announced Wednesday it was updating the look of its Tweet and Follow buttons for the first time since 2011, in a post on its Developer Forums.
Gone is the subtle 3D effect, blue Twitter bird and black text of the old buttons, replaced with a simple 2D white-over-blue look. These buttons, which are found all over the web, will be switching to the new look next month.
This update comes at a time when many tech companies are changing their aesthetics with vibrant colors and 2D textures, most notably Google, which changed its logo earlier this month.
Beyond the look of the new buttons, Twitter is quietly removing a feature that has been part of its share buttons for the last five years: Share counts.
For larger publishers (including Mashable), who already have relationships with Gnip, Twitter’s data arm, nothing will change. Those companies and publishers will continue to be able to publish and glean share counts from share buttons and article links in real-time. It’s smaller publishers and individual sites that will be affected.
These sites will need to engineer a new share count feature, using Twitter’s REST API, or by working with Gnip for gathering full-archive search counts.
Follow buttons will still display metrics as they have in the past.
It's interesting that Twitter seems to be de-emphasizing one of its defining metrics with this otherwise minimal redesign. The reasons for doing this are unclear, but it seems shares aren't as valuable to Twitter as they used to be.
Additional reporting by Christina Warren.