Twitter cleverly expands 140 character limit

Twitter was built as a microblogging platform and although very successful it has left many struggling to get their views and opinions across in the 140 character per post limit.

By adding @usernames to connect with your friends or follower, links, images, videos and/or polls will add characters to the already short 140 characters limit which generally leaves you with about half the characters to get your point across.

Rumours have been flying around that Twitter is gearing up to give us a little bit more room and you’ll be pleased to know that the change isn’t going to dramatically change Twitters unique platform.

Twitter has finally announced that certain elements within posts will no longer affect the character count. Soon usernames, photo, videos, polls, GIFs and quoted tweets from others won’t add to the character count.

This gives us a lot more freedom to get our points across without having to limit our words so carefully.

You can attach up to four photos without affecting your characters or a single video, poll, GIF or quoted tweet.

This isn’t the only new update for Twitter. Soon, you won’t have to .@ before someone’s name for the tweet to be broadcasted on your followers timelines. Tweets starting with just a username will reach all your followers in the future. 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.

These updates may not seem overly significant but are likely to change Twitter in a profound way without losing the Twitter feel.

All these updates will be made available over the next few months.