Twitter has had one very rigid rule over its brief existence, and that’s that tweets are limited to 140 characters. And this isn’t changing. What is, changing, though, is how those characters are counted, and that’s a pretty big deal. Here’s what you need to know.
The main beef many users have had with Twitter is that everything you included in a tweet counted towards your 140. If you put in a photo, that would eat up a fair number of characters, 24 to be exact. A web address — sharing a news article for instance — would also cost you enough characters that you might have to reconfigure your comment. Even quoting a tweet cost you characters. Not anymore. Now, your 140 characters are dedicated to your tweet, regardless of what you’re appending to it. GIF, photo, link or quoted tweet, you’ll be able to post with the full 140.
Also in the works is a change to replies, where the Twitter handle of the user you’re replying to won’t count in the tweet either. This one we’re a little skeptical of, not only because is it a spammer’s dream — mention 500 people at one time? Great for business! — but it could also be a way for trolls to harass more people at once. Still, Twitter claims it’s on the way.
More space to tweets is great, but it’s not the only thing Twitter is missing: We’re sure the company will figure out what feature its userbase most wants next eventually, though.
(via Mashable)