Twitter Is Letting More Fit Into 140 Characters

Twitter wants more to fit into a tweet.

The San Francisco, Calif.-based company announced on Tuesday it is reducing what counts toward its trademark 140-character tweet limit. Over the coming months, the “@username” in a tweeted reply won’t count toward the limit. Media attachments such as photos, videos, polls, GIFs or “Quote tweets” will also no longer take up character space.

Twitter is also simplifying the format of some tweets. The microblogging site is doing away with the “.@“ convention, which tweeters have been using in order to begin a tweet with a username but still ensure the tweet is seen by their entire audience and not just by the named user. In the new format, tweets that begin with “@username" will reach all of the tweeter’s followers, the company said. And in a move that could help boost engagement, Twitter will let users “Retweet” their own tweets and quote tweets using a retweet button, similarly to how users can currently retweet others.

“The updates have a significant impact on tweets, so we want to provide our developer partners with time to update hundreds of thousands of products built using Twitter’s API,” senior product manager Todd Sherman said in a statement. “In addition to the changes above, we have plans to help you get even more from your tweets. We’re exploring ways to make existing uses easier and enable new ones, all without compromising the unique brevity and speed that make Twitter the best place for live commentary, connections and conversations.”

In the last few months, Twitter has added a number of new features to tweets: The option to share and watch broadcasts from Twitter’s live-video streaming app Periscope, tools that let users poll their audience and GIFs. The updates suggest that Twitter, under cofounder and CEO Jack Dorsey, is trying to make the platform easier to use and understand for new users as well as for existing users who don’t use the site often.

Twitter is making the changes at a time when the company is striving to spark its stagnating user growth of about 310 million monthly active users. Twitter’s ongoing struggle to attract new users has raised questions about the company’s ability to simplify its product and give the service mainstream appeal. Twitter’s user growth stands in stark contrast to other popular social apps such as Facebook-owned WhatsApp, which has 1 billion monthly active users and Instagram, which has 400 million users.