You can be on Entrepreneur’s cover!

Twitter Makes More Character Limit Changes Now, when you reply to someone's tweet, their username (such as @realDonaldTrump) won't count against your 140-character limit.

By Tom Brant

entrepreneur daily

This story originally appeared on PCMag

Bloomua / Shutterstock.com

Twitter on Thursday announced changes to character limits for reply tweets, the latest step in the struggling company's ongoing journey to whittle away the strict 140-character limit on which it originally made its name in the social media world.

Now, when you reply to someone's tweet, their username (such as @realDonaldTrump) won't count against your 140-character limit. The change is in keeping with Twitter's other recent relaxations of the limit, which have centered around the theme of not penalizing users for things they can't control: after all, if a tweet moves you to respond, shouldn't your reply be independent of the length of the person's username?

With Thursday's change, Twitter is also revamping how it displays reply tweets on its mobile and web platforms. The username of the person to whom you're replying will display above the text of the tweet you're composing, to remind you that it's not part of the character limit. That should make tweets with a long reply thread much easier to read. Users will "actually see what people are saying, rather than seeing lots of @usernames at the start of a Tweet," Twitter explained in a blog post.

The impetus for the change was -- predictably -- beta testing that suggests it will drive user engagement, something Twitter is focused on improving as it seeks new ways to generate revenue following lackluster interest from potential acquirers last year.

"The updates we're making today are based on feedback from all of you as well as research and experimentation," the company wrote. "In our tests of this new experience, we found that people engage more with conversations on Twitter."

Twitter previously relaxed the 140-character limit by exempting video and photo attachments.

Tom Brant

News reporter

Tom is PCMag's San Francisco-based news reporter. 

Want to be an Entrepreneur Leadership Network contributor? Apply now to join.

Editor's Pick

Business News

From Tom Brady to Kevin O'Leary – See Who Lost Big in the Wake of the FTX Crypto Collapse

The crash exposed an $8 billion hole in FTX's accounts, leaving investors and customers scrambling to recoup their funds.

Business News

This Highly-Debated Piece of Cinematic History Just Sold For Over $700,000 at Auction

The wood panel from "Titanic" is often mistaken as a door. Either way, he couldn't have fit. (Sorry.)

Fundraising

Avoid These 9 Pitch Deck Mistakes When Asking Others For Money

Crafting an efficient pitch deck requires serious effort, but at least it's not wandering in the dark since certain rules are shaped by decades of relationships between startups and investors.

Business Ideas

63 Small Business Ideas to Start in 2024

We put together a list of the best, most profitable small business ideas for entrepreneurs to pursue in 2024.