These changes are long overdue.
It’s just been announced that Twitter is getting some pretty massive changes to its functionality. While we recently got some new features such as the choice of GIFs and to create polls, these new changes will help people to express more within the 140 character limit.
The changes will mean we will be able to Retweet ourselves, @names won’t take up any characters, either will photos or media and you will no longer have to put .@ at the start of Tweets if you need to start a tweet with a person’s @name.
Twitter has given a breakdown of how all these changes will actually work:
- Replies: When replying to a Tweet, @names will no longer count toward the 140-character count. This will make having conversations on Twitter easier and more straightforward, no more penny-pinching your words to ensure they reach the whole group.
- Media attachments: When you add attachments like photos, GIFs, videos, polls, or Quote Tweets, that media will no longer count as characters within your Tweet. More room for words!
- Retweet and Quote Tweet yourself: We’ll be enabling the Retweet button on your own Tweets, so you can easily Retweet or Quote Tweet yourself when you want to share a new reflection or feel like a really good one went unnoticed.
- Goodbye, .@: These changes will help simplify the rules around Tweets that start with a username. New Tweets that begin with a username will reach all your followers. (That means you’ll no longer have to use the ”.@” convention, which people currently use to broadcast Tweets broadly.) If you want a reply to be seen by all your followers, you will be able to Retweet it to signal that you intend for it to be viewed more broadly.
They’re due to come into effect in the coming months. They’ve also said that they want to ‘help get even more from your Tweets’ saying, “We’re exploring ways to make existing uses easier and enable new ones, all without compromising the unique brevity and speed that make Twitter the best place for live commentary, connections, and conversations.”
