Remember Twitter? It’s that mysterious website inhabited by insane weirdos who spend all day bickering about something or another, and then journalists for some reason. And Shaq.
Twitter has announced a raft of new changes for the service that are meant to keep users engaged and interested. It’s known that the company has been trialling and testing new ways of getting the most out of the 140 character limit – which is beloved by power users, but tends to alienate those who aren’t accustomed to cramming their beautiful thoughts into a smaller space.
So what’s new? Firstly, the company has implemented subtle changes to get more characters in, without going overboard. Usernames (those pesky @’s) don’t count toward the character limit, and neither do links and pictures. You can put as many as 50 usernames in one Tweet, in case you got the idea to send an @ to every user on the website.
Secondly, you’ll also be allowed to retweet yourself, in case your sterling and original observation about how Peter Dutton looks like a potato went tragically unloved the first time around.
Thirdly – and this will make literally no sense to anyone who doesn’t use the platform – your @’s will start showing up in people’s timelines, meaning you won’t have to do the tried-and-true “.@” if you want to make sure all your followers see you own Woolworths or something.
Twitter has been struggling to turn a profit and show investors and advertisers that they are capable of the user growth and engagement of companies like their insanely powerful rival Facebook. These new features are part of an attempt to reach out to non-Twitter users who are currently – correctly – very baffled by the service.
It’s definitely a better idea than letting people make 10,000 character tweets, which was floated at some point in the past. I can’t imagine anything more horrifying.
Source: Twitter.
Photo: Twitter.
