To provide better user experience and entice more people to the platform, Twitter is now making tweets roomier. Usernames and photos will no longer be counted in the 140-character limit, the company announced on May 24.
In the succeeding months, the company will implement changes in an effort to simplify users' tweets and veer away from its baffling and restrictive rules.
"@names in replies and media attachments (like photos, GIFs, videos, and polls) will no longer 'use up' valuable characters," reads Twitter's blogpost announcing the big news.
What Will Change
Specifically, here are the new changes to expect once the new update is pushed out.
1. @names In Replies
Twitter says that @names in replies will no longer count against the 140-character limit to make it more seamless and straightforward for users to have their conversations on the platform.
"[N]o more penny-pinching your words to ensure they reach the whole group," says Twitter.
2. Media
Media, such as GIFs, photos, quote tweets, polls or videos, will likewise not count as characters in users' tweets.
3. ".@" Convention
Soon, Twitter will ditch the ".@" which users presently use in broadcasting tweets. For instance, if users want their reply to be viewed by their followers, they should retweet it to signify that they want it to be seen broadly.
4. Retweet Or Quote Tweet Yourself
Twitter will also allow users to retweet or quote tweet themselves if they think, for example, that their earlier posts went ignored by their followers.
All these updates will soon be rolled out on the iOS and Android versions of the app, Twitter's website, TweetDeck plus Twitter for Mac.
"One of the biggest priorities for this year is to refine our product and make it simpler," said Twitter's Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder Jack Dorsey in a statement via TechCrunch. "We're focused on making Twitter a whole lot easier and faster. This is what Twitter is great at — what's happening now, live conversation and the simplicity that we started the service with."
The company does not go into details as to when exactly these modifications will go live, apart from saying that these will take effect in "the coming months."
We'll be sure to keep you posted, though, as soon as these updates will be available.
This announcement from Twitter partly confirms earlier rumors saying that links and photos will not be counted toward the 140-character restriction in an effort to expand the maximum text permitted on tweets.
Here is a glimpse of the forthcoming changes that will soon land on Twitter.
