Twitter became more Facebook-like by adding the ability to tag up to 10 people in each photo posted and it now gives users the ability to post up to four photos at a time in a tweet.
The change does give Twitter users more functionality, but does not impact the 140-character limit. All the tagging text does not count against the limit and it is stored in the background. Unlike the current method most people use which is to @mention someone, which is stored in the body of the tweet and counts against the character total.
In addition, those tagged will receive a notification, just like Facebook.
For the time being only iPhone users will receive the full benefit of these changes.
"The ability to upload multiple photos is starting to roll out today on iPhone, and is coming soon to Android and twitter.com. Whether you're on iPhone, Android or twitter.com, you can view Tweets with multiple photos," Twitter said in its announcement.
The ability to tag does raise some privacy issues and Twitter users are being told to change the security settings on their account. Twitter said people can adjust their notifications and who can tag them by changing their settings. In settings several choices are offered.
Allow anyone to tag me
Only allow people I follow to tag me in photos
Do not allow anyone to tag me in photos
This is just the latest in a series of changes announced or expected by the two leading social networking sites. Facebook just acquired the virtual reality helmet maker Oculus VR and Twitter execs have hinted that the site may dump the #hashtag and @reply symbols.
"By bringing the content of Twitter forward and pushing the scaffolding of the language of Twitter to the background, we can increase high-quality interactions and make it more likely that new or casual users will find this service as indispensable as our existing core users do. And we took initial steps in that direction with the introduction of media forward timelines and in-line social actions in October, and we're already starting to see early signs that those initiatives are working well," said Vivian Schiller, Twitter's head of news.
All of these moves are taking place to help Twitter with one of its bigger problem. The site has found itself with a steady growth rate, but compared to Facebook it has a lot of trouble getting new users hooked on the service. That is part of the reason to eliminate the symbology that is now so well identified with the site. While regular users understand the symbols they look like Klingon to newcomers.
