Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Twitter is finally letting users get the most out of 140 characters

By | 13 September, 2016

FOUR months after its original announcement, Twitter will finally be implementing the changes it promised to allow users more room for expression without worrying about non-word elements eating up their 140 characters.

From September 19, all media attachments (pictures, videos, GIFs, etc),and quoted tweets will no longer take up precious room in tweets, giving users much more flexibility.

A report by Recode in January this year set the Twittersphere abuzz when it said the social media giant was mulling over the idea of extending the character limit to 10,000, citing sources close to the company.

However, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey responded saying that although the 140-character limit was first used to make a tweet fit into SMS messages (160 characters at the time), it is now something he loves.

SEE ALSO: Twitter: Changes to 140-character limit allows users to post longer tweets

“It inspires creativity and brevity. And a sense of speed. We will never lose that feeling,” said Dorsey, much to the relief of users who enjoy Twitter’s quick-fire attitude towards information and news.

Dorsey told The Verge in May that the new changes are the most notable the company has made in recent times. He was quoted saying: “Generally, we want to make sure we’re encouraging a whole lot more conversations on Twitter… I’m excited to see even more dialog because of this.”

Last week, Twitter added a new update to its Direct Messages feature: read receipts that allow users to see who has already seen their message, and who is responding. This didn’t go down particularly well with some users:

If anything, Twitter users can now rest easy knowing they can attach memes and reaction GIFs to their tweets, and rant even more thanks to the changes.



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