Twitter won't count @replies towards its 140 characters tweet limit

Twitter is known as a micro-blogging site because of its 140-character limit. But within a short span of time, its USP became its Achilles heel as users increasingly complained about the small window to express themselves.  As part of a series of upgrades to get Twitter back on growth trajectory, Dorsey's team removed the limit cap for GIFs, images, videos, and quote tweets last year. Improving on the much welcomed feature, now the company is also adding @replies under this category, giving users more space and letters to unwind their thoughts.

Basically, Twitter will no longer count usernames in replies toward those 140 characters. This will be particularly useful for group conversations, where replying to two, three or more users at a time could be tricky with the character constraints.

Sasank Reddy, the Product Manager at Twitter, said in a blog post, "Remember how we told you we were working on ways to let you express more with 140 characters? Since then, we’ve introduced two updates, and today we’re rolling out another. Now, when you reply to someone or a group, those @usernames won’t count toward your Tweet’s 140 characters."

We're changing replies so that you have all 140 characters to express yourself.

Learn more: https://t.co/PNWGilbmVd pic.twitter.com/cxBJohZc2Q

— Twitter (@Twitter) March 30, 2017

With today’s update to replies, Twitter’s interface on web and mobile will now display those you’re replying to above the tweet text, instead of within the tweet. You can tap on “Replying To” field to see who’s in the conversation and make changes to the reply list if you choose. You can also uncheck the checkboxes in the small pop-up that appears on the screen after tapping this field, to make the changes.

Obviously, the latest move is another attempt by the company to increase its user base and engagement, which have been static for a long time to the chagrin of investors.

Twitter made the announcement to relax the limit a year ago, as part of an effort to bring in more members and make the platform easier to use. Twitter has been trying to rectify the problems with its 140 character limit over the past several months by changing its user interface and lifting various technical restrictions.

"Our work isn't finished," Reddy said. "We’ll continue to think about how we can improve conversations and make Twitter easier to use."