A report from Bloomberg on Monday claims Twitter will soon stop counting photos and links toward the 140-character tweet limit. It is hoped the move will encourage users to add more media to their tweets.
The change could happen in the next two weeks, said the person who asked not to be named because the decision isn’t yet public. Links currently take up 23 characters, even after Twitter automatically shortens them. The company declined to comment.
Currently, there is a four image limit on tweets, and it isn’t clear if Twitter will impose a different count limit on images, or on links in a tweet if it stops counting them against the 140-character limit.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said in January the company was looking for new ways to display text on the service, and would experiment based on how people use the service. Bloomberg notes some users tweet screenshots of longer text, or send tweets one after the other to tell a longer tale.
The 140-character per tweet limit was originally put into place because it was a way to send a tweet via a mobile text message, which is how many users posted tweets before the smartphone became the mobile standard.
We here at MacTrast hope the report comes to fruition, as it certainly is tough to write a witty, eye-catching tweet in 140-characters when the link and images count against the limit. (OK, it’s tough for us to be witty in thousands of characters, but you get our drift.)
