Daily Times

NEW YORK: Twitter is making some big changes in its interface. Now, you can express in more than 140 characters.

The social media service on Tuesday said that in the coming months, photos, videos and other media won’t count toward Twitter’s 140-character limit. That means more wordy tweets are on the way.

The change, announced on Tuesday, is yet another attempt by the San Francisco company to make its messaging service easier to use and to attract new users.

Twitter did not – as many had speculated in recent months – abolish its character limit.

A person’s Twitter handle, which starts with the “(at)” symbol will also not count against character limits, enabling people to retweet and quote their own tweets.

In another change, any new tweet beginning with an “(at)” symbol name will be seen by all followers. Previously, a tweet that started with a person’s handle did not become part of their feed.

Twitter has tried to keep all users happy, those for and against relaxing character limits, by sticking to the current count while allowing more freedom to express thoughts, or rants, through images and other media.

Above all, Twitter hopes that the changes will re-ignite user growth.

The San Francisco company – which recently celebrated its 10th birthday – is dwarfed by its rival, Facebook. Its current number of users, about 310 million users, trails even than the professional networking service LinkedIn.

Facebook has around 1.65 billion users. Even though many people are familiar with Twitter – at least that it exists – the company has been unable to convert them to active users. Twitter remains hard to understand for many, with its own lingo of hash tags and symbols. The changes are the latest put in place with hopes of spurring growth.