Micro-blogging site Twitter is rolling out new features that will help its over 300 million users express even more in 140 characters.
In the coming months, it will make changes to simplify Tweets including what counts toward your 140 characters. So for instance, @names in replies and media attachments (like photos, GIFs, videos and polls) will no longer "use up" valuable characters.
"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," Twitter said in a blog post on Tuesday.
"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!," it added.
Over the past decade, the tweet has evolved from a simple 140-character text message to a rich canvas for creative expression featuring photos, videos, hashtags, Vines and more.
When it come to goodbye, "the 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.
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"These updates will be available over the coming months. We're notifying you and our developers so that everything works as it should when we roll these changes out," Twitter announced.
In addition to these changes, Twitter has plans to help you get even more from your tweets.
It is 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.
According to Twitter, there is still time for you to tweet in 10,000 characters and its original 140-character limit is here to stay.
Appearing on a TV show recently, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said that the 140-character limit is "a beautiful constraint" and that Twitter "will never lose that feeling".
"It's (140-characters) staying. It's a good constraint for us, and it allows for of-the-moment brevity... We're changing a lot. We're always going to make Twitter better," he was quoted as saying.
Earlier in January, media reports said that Twitter is building a new feature that will allow users to tweet longer than its traditional 140-character limit.
The 140-character limit has been around as long as Twitter has been and has become part of the product's personality.
--IANS
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