Twitter on Monday announced major changes to its 140 characters in tweets.
The social network said that media content like photos, videos, GIFs, polls and Quote Tweets will no longer be counted as part of the 140 characters, enabling users to ram in more words.
The new policy, which was announced in May, no longer factors in certain add-ons, including pictures, into a message’s length.
The company announced that the character expansion would take place in the coming months.
Announcing this feature, Twitter said on its official handle, “Say more about what’s happening! Rolling out now: photos, videos, GIFs, polls, and Quote Tweets no longer count toward your 140 characters.”
Also, the “@” symbol — would also be excluded from 140-character limit, it still counts toward the total, as of Monday. The company told CNNMoney it will be updating its change to include @names soon.
The move comes as Twitter’s efforts to increase its user base and engagement have been sputtering, raising questions about its growth trend as it seeks to keep pace in the fast-moving world of social media.
The company is yet to post a profit, even as it has ramped up its efforts in advertising.
The goal with its departure from the 140 characters – Twitter’s defining feature from day one – is to make the service easier to use.
In its last quarterly update, Twitter said the number of monthly active users edged up to 313 million, up three percent from a year ago and only slightly more than the 310 million in the prior quarter.
The cap on direct messages was removed last year, allowing users to send messages up to 10,000 characters in private between themselves.
