Reports emerged last week that Twitter Inc. would be making changes to what items, like photos and links, would no longer count towards its 140-character limit. The rumors have been partially confirmed with Twitter’s announcement that it is freeing up space in the 140-character limit.

“One of the biggest priorities for this year is to refine our product and make it simpler,” said Jack Dorsey, Twitter CEO and co-founder, in a statement. “We’re focused on making Twitter a whole lot easier and faster. This is what Twitter is great at — what’s happening now, live conversation and the simplicity that we started the service with.”

The new changes come as Twitter continues to struggle to add new users, growing just 3 percent between Q4 2015 and Q1 2016. We will have to wait and see whether fewer rules and restrictions will attract new Twitter users.   

Here is a look at how these changes will affect Twitter users in the coming months.

Keep the conversation going and reply to everyone

Twitter users will now have more space to have a conversation with the announcement that @names will no longer count towards the 140-character limit. Replies will now display differently in the user interface as it will no longer include the @mentions.

Your description will no longer be cut short by an image

The same goes for any media attachments, like photos, GIFs, videos, polls or Quote Tweets and will no longer form part of the character limit. However, unlike previously reported, links will still count towards the 140-character limit.

Say goodbye to the period before the @

Currently, when you start a Tweet with a username, it is only seen by that specific person. The workaround was placing a period before the @, which allowed the Tweet to be seen by all followers. The new change gets rid of the necessary period and you can simply start you Tweet with the username and reach all your followers. While you can also Retweet a reply if you want to see it more broadly.

Rebroadcast your old Tweets

The last change will bring in the addition of a Retweet button to your own Tweets. Allowing you to Retweet your old tweets or Quote Tweet yourself to ensure more followers get to see it this time round.

When will the changes roll out?

Twitter users will have to wait a while before these changes come into effect. All Twitter have said is that the changes will become available “over the coming months.” The delayed rollout is to allow developers to make the necessary changes to their products built using Twitter’s API.  

Main image credit: geralt; Flickr | Other images via: Twitter, Twitter Developers