Photos and links won’t be part of Twitter’s 140-character-limit for tweets anymore, Bloomberg reported. Twitter users will be able to include photos and links without affecting the character limit.
According to an anonymous source, who asked to remain like this because the decision isn’t public yet, the change is likely to take place within the next two weeks. Twitter refused to give any comment on the report.
Back in 2010, the company launched its “t.com” link wrapping service in order to help users to include links in their tweets in an easier way. Despite Twitter’s efforts, users seem to think that links shouldn’t be counted in the character limit.
If the company decides to carry out this new count policy, users will have at least 23 more characters available to compose their tweets. Because even though Twitter automatically shortens links, they take up 23 characters. This change in Twitter’s character limit intends to encourage users to attach more media content to their tweets.
CEP Jack Dorsey said that Twitter won’t be “shy about building more utility and power into Twitter for people.” He added that they’re going to explore what people want to do on the social media.
Twitter is trying to engage more users
Early this year, the social media was considering the possibility of increasing the character limit to 10,000, Bloomberg reported. However, executives realized that short and quick posts are precisely what keeps Twitter apart from the competition.
According to Bloomberg, Twitter Cards, a feature launched four years ago, intended to attract brands, media companies, advertisers and other power users by giving them the possibility to include more text, media, links and other contents to their tweets. But soon, if the change in the social media’s character limit gets done, those who don’t use Twitter Cards will be able to have more control over the composition of their tweets. This might help the company to attract more users, because unlike other social networks and messengers, Twitter has been struggling with its users’ growth for a while.
Twitter is currently implementing another strategy to engage more users: using videos to cover live events. According to a source familiar with the matter, the company paid $10 million to the National Football League for the rights to stream 10 Thursday night games during the 2016 season. Twitter’s strategy includes content deals for streaming more sports, political events and entertainment.
Source: Bloomberg