INQUISITR.COM / Science & Tech

Twitter Planning Major Shift In 140 Character Messages, Dropping Usage On Photos And Links

By Anne Sewell
Published on: 00:47 PST, May 17, 2016

Those with a lot to say will be happy to hear that Twitter may be making major changes to how it currently handles the 140-character limit.

Many of us have so much to say in our messages when using the popular social media platform and are often forced to split our words over multiple tweets for effect. Of course, in many cases, this just doesn’t work.

Now Twitter is being kind to its users by planning a major change as to how characters are counted. Reportedly, the social media platform is planning on giving more room for the actual message by stopping counting images and links in their 140-character minimum.

Reportedly, at present, links can take up to 23 of the 144 characters available, even after Twitter automatically shortens them or the tweep uses the Bit.ly URL shortening service.

The International Business Times quotes a person familiar with the subject as saying that in the near future, Twitter will stop counting images and links in their 140-character limit, giving users more freedom when composing their tweets.

According to the source, this major change could happen within the next two weeks, although the company has declined to comment.

Reportedly, this step is just part of Twitter’s larger plan to give its users more flexibility. CEO Jack Dorsey said back in January that the social media company was seeking new ways to display text on Twitter and explained they would be experimenting based on how people use their service.

The examples given were where some users tweet screenshots of longer text contained in articles, or others send one tweet after another to play out a continuous story.

In Twitter-related news on the Inquisitr:

Reportedly, the 140-character limit set by Twitter was originally thought up in a more ancient time when this would fit all the information within a mobile text message, which had been a common way to sent tweets. However, this was back in 2006 before the advent of smartphones, and of course, times have changed.

As reported by the Inquisitr at the beginning of this year, Twitter considered raising the limit per message to as many as 10,000 characters. However, the quick and snappy nature of tweets has set the social media platform apart from its competitors, and this would have ruined the effect.

Bloomberg notes that while that idea was boxed, Twitter executives have been spending the last few months promoting their platform as a major destination for live events and discussions, with many a live tweeting event being held.

Twitter experts now figure that removing the character requirement for photos and links might encourage users to add more media in the form of images and videos, and therefore add more interest to their posts.

As part of their live events effort, Twitter has been making video a priority, and earlier in the year, the social media giant agreed to pay $10 million to the National Football League to give them the rights to stream 10 Thursday night games of the 2016 season. Reportedly, Twitter is working on even more content deals in the form of streaming of political events, sports, and entertainment.

While the International Business Times was unable to get a comment from a Twitter spokeswoman on Monday, it does sound hopeful. As they say, the new move would give more room for the latest Donald Trump controversy, allow the Republican presidential candidate to address his critics with more than just the word “dopey” and give the opportunity for longer remarks on the subject of Beyoncé’s Lemonade.

[Image via Yeamake/Shutterstock.com]

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