Twitter Inc. is making a major shift in how it counts characters in Tweets, giving users more freedom to compose longer messages. Therefore Twitter is planning on letting users craft longer tweets by not counting photos and links toward its 140-character limit, according to a report from Bloomberg
The change could be made within the next two weeks. The company has not yet commented on the report. But in January, founder Jack Dorsey said Twitter would explore ways of enabling its users to write longer posts.
The change could be made within the next two weeks. The company has not yet commented on the report. But in January, founder Jack Dorsey said Twitter would explore ways of enabling its users to write longer posts.
Links currently take up 23 characters, even after Twitter automatically shortens them.
The 140-character limit was originally adopted because it was a way to send Tweets while fitting all the information within a mobile text message a common way for sending Tweets when the service debuted in 2006, before the proliferation of smartphones.
However, the company has struggled to attract new users and has seen its share price decline by more than 70% over the past year.
Last June, Twitter announced it would increase the limit on direct messages between one user and another to 10,000 characters.
