We knew these changes were coming to Twitter, but according to the social media platform, they have finally arrived.
Soon, when replying to a tweet ‘@names’ no longer count towards the platform’s 140-character count limit. This may sound like a minor changes, but sometimes having just a few more characters can make a significant difference regarding the amount of content in a tweet. While all the other changes to Twitter’s character count mentioned in this story launch today, the @names shift won’t hit the service until a few weeks from now.
Similar to the @names shift, various types of media, including photos, GIFs, videos, polls and quote tweets, likewise no longer count towards Twitter’s character limit. The social media platform is also enabling the ability to retweet and quote tweet your own posts, allowing users to resurface older content they feel went unnoticed.
Perhaps the most significant change, however, is the removal of the ‘.@’ command, a workaround Twitter users have been using for users to ensure direct, but public messages, are seen by all of their followers. Now, the ‘.’ is no longer necessary to ensure all followers see a public conversation.
“These updates come in response to users wanting more photos, more videos and more conversation on Twitter,” said Rory Capern, managing director of Twitter Canada. “Twitter is becoming an increasingly visual platform but at the same time, brevity and velocity are still at its core. By allowing more attachments while maintaining the 140 character count for text, we’re giving users more possibility and potential in the Tweets they send.”
While Twitter announces these minor but platform altering changes back in May, the service says that they’re finally rolling out today, starting at 1:00p.m. EST.
