It still not confirmed, but they might be testing out this before applying changes completely.
But, I must say, this would make marketers more happy to share their voice.
Twitter to Stop Counting Photos and Links in 140-Character Limit
161–170 of 196 posts
Re: Twitter to Stop Counting Photos and Links in 140-Character Limit
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
It made sense during the time period it came about. You have 160 characters for an SMS. 140 allows 20 characters for @names, commands, etc. When my friends and I first started using Twitter, we basically used it as a group chat, similar to Hangouts/FB today.
My understanding is that actually there is no extra 20, it's precisely the length of an SMS. SMS is 160 characters, yes -- but in a 7-bit encoding (which is actually transmitted as a 7-bit encoding, not padded to octets like ASCII). That makes 140 bytes, which is what Twitter allows (or presumably originally allowed; I guess now longer characters still only count for 1 rather than multiple).
No, there's an extra 20.
SMS messages are 140 bytes: 160 7-bit characters, 140 8-bit characters, or 70 UCS-2 16-bit characters.
Twitter used 160-character text messages, where 140 characters were the tweet itself, and the rest was the username.
Re: Twitter to Stop Counting Photos and Links in 140-Character Limit
#163Also, I think Unicode characters only count as one character. This is now totally disconnected from SMS.
Yes, they count the number of normalised Unicode code points. They don't care how many bytes they take up.
Re: Twitter to Stop Counting Photos and Links in 140-Character Limit
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
Imo, it shows that, like many of us, they don't really understand why Twitter became so popular. That being the case, they don't know what they can and cannot safely change.
I think looking at it this way is a bit naive. While I agree that "attachments" shouldn't take up tweet text, the 140 character limit is a core component of the service. Call it a micro blog or a mass SMS, Twitter is 140 characters. That said, I think most comments are missing the point - having attachments not take up characters really won't make the service any more useful to the mainstream... That's the real probl…
I don't know, if you post a link as well as an image you're losing 24 characters from a 140 character limit. You lose just less than 20% of the characters available. I think a 20% increase is fairly substantial.
Re: Twitter to Stop Counting Photos and Links in 140-Character Limit
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think looking at it this way is a bit naive. While I agree that "attachments" shouldn't take up tweet text, the 140 character limit is a core component of the service. Call it a micro blog or a mass SMS, Twitter is 140 characters. That said, I think most comments are missing the point - having attachments not take up characters really won't make the service any more useful to the mainstream... That's the real probl…
I don't know, if you post a link as well as an image you're losing 24 characters from a 140 character limit. You lose just less than 20% of the characters available. I think a 20% increase is fairly substantial.
Especially considering most changes are pandering to brands, and this is a use case that we use a lot. (Whether Twitter is a useful channel aside...) extra space for copy will always go down well with the people paying the bills.
Re: Twitter to Stop Counting Photos and Links in 140-Character Limit
#166I wonder what they will do once people start using http://the.links http://to.write.longer http://messages
Anyone wanting to bypass the 140 limit is already doing so using an image with text in it. And anyone who spams really long messages using URLs is going to see their followers count drop pretty rapidly.
I like your optimism
Re: Twitter to Stop Counting Photos and Links in 140-Character Limit
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
Microblog, but sure..
Whilst Twitter has someone tweet the occasional gem, it's genuinely few and far between. I honestly feel that the format was great when it was only really programmers who used it (and even then I'm not so sure...) but limiting people to 140 characters, even discounting images and links, means most people can't convey views on most complex issues. I have an unpopular view, but I'm firmly of the belief that all Twitter…
Twitter is not great for complex arguments over differing views. Hardly anywhere on the internet is, though! In order to do that you need a small heavily moderated community.
Twitter is great for zeitgeist, silliness, mass-participation solidarity politics (this isn't very thoughtful, yes, but that's not always the most important thing), following live events, international fandoms, and kibitzing.
Re: Twitter to Stop Counting Photos and Links in 140-Character Limit
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
Definitely twitter is entirely about who you follow. I tried it out early on, saw no value, and ignored it for a year or two, until a friend convinced me it has some value, and there are two uses I find. I follow several programmers (some internet famous, some merely who I've found from using a project they worked on or someone else's retweet), and through that, find it interesting to get a glimpse at what other peop…
What's the best strategy for avoiding harassment? I have a Twitter account, but very, very rarely use it. It's my biggest concern really. Knowing strategies to avoid just nasty people is the main issue I have with it. Like, if you go into Twitter and see that you have a whole bunch of Gamer Gayers targeting you (just an example, I can't see how I would be a target!) then I'd imagine having no Twitter would be prefera…
I'd imagine having no Twitter would be preferable to actually having a Twitter account!
To some people it's so valuable to use as a means of participating in their community of choice that they're willing to keep using it despite severe harrasment.
Not being a woman gives you a big advantage against harrasment. But it can come from all sorts of weird places. My wife is a big Eurovision tweeter and encountered people who search for "Macedonia" to tweet Greek nationalist abuse at.
Re: Twitter to Stop Counting Photos and Links in 140-Character Limit
#169I wonder what they will do once people start using http://the.links http://to.write.longer http://messages
Hasn't twitter been replacing long URLs with their own short URLs for a while now? So this change probably won't make a difference, assuming users will still have to hover the link to see the tooltip of the full URL.
Re: Twitter to Stop Counting Photos and Links in 140-Character Limit
#170Would be nice if pic.twitter.com links didn't link to videos with sound too that auto-play with sound when in their mobile app