Twitter has announced it is easing its 140-character limit for tweets, allowing users to add links, attachments, and some other features within the short messages.
The move comes as Twitter’s efforts to increase its user base and engagement have been sputtering, raising questions about its growth trend.
“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,” said Twitter product manager Todd Sherman in a statement.
“So, you can already do a lot in a tweet, but we want you to be able to do even more. In the coming months we'll make changes to simplify tweets including what counts toward your 140 characters.”
Sherman said names in replies, and media attachments such as photos, videos, and polls will no longer be counted towards the character limit.
He added that updates would be implemented “over the coming months” and that developer partners would be given the tools to enable the change on sites that use Twitter.
Relaxing the 140-character limit, which was set owing to mobile phone text messaging constraints in place when Twitter launched in 2006, is expected to encourage more use and sharing of pictures, videos, and links.
