The company clearly believes - that it needs to change some things to attract and keep new users, but doesn’t seem inclined to - change anything so radically that it would upset loyalists enough for them to leave. That - being said, pretty much any change to Twitter has the effect of upsetting its biggest fans a - little: when “fav” became “like” last year, many hard-core users freaked out a bit, before - adjusting to the fact that one of the site’s buttons had changed from a star to a heart and it was - fine. A rumored - plan to dramatically increase Twitter’s character limits, however, crossed that line, and Twitter’s chief - executive Jack Dorsey eventually disavowed it.
--
While incremental, the newest - round of changes — rolling out in the coming months, Twitter says — will eliminate some of the - creative workarounds Twitter’s users have developed to get the most out of the 140-character limited - platform. In other words, tweets will be longer, but not in the way that everyone feared. “You can - already do a lot in a Tweet, but we want you to be able to do even more,” Twitter’s announcement - reads. My colleague Hayley Tsukayama has - a full-run down of all the announced changes at The Switch.
-A couple of tweaks to what - “counts” towards Twitter’s short character limit will expand the length of tweets without going - too crazy. Other announced changes will tweak the reach of some tweets. That includes one of the - more interesting changes, which will largely eliminate the need for the “.@,” a weird, organic - solution to one of Twitter’s quirks. Unfortunately, the change isn’t explained very - clearly in Twitter’s announcement, so we’ve done our best to break down what will — and won’t — - be changing below.
-See, Twitter doesn’t display - every tweet of yours to all your followers. Anything that begins with an “@” is treated like a - reply, and has a pretty limited reach. You’ll see @-beginning tweets only if both the person tagged - and the person tweeting are people you follow. In recent years, Twitter has started to separate out - “reply” tweets more and more. When several tweets written as replies to previous ones become a - longer conversation, Twitter bundles it for you - and shows it to you as a linked string of tweets.
--
But not every tweet that - begins with an “@” is actually a reply to another user. Sometimes the tweet is simply a - sentence that begins with a reference to another user. Other times, it’s a stage whisper: The tweet - is addressed to one person, but it’s meant for everyone to see. To get around the fact that Twitter - automatically limits the reach of and “@”-leading tweets, even if they’re not actually meant as a - reply to a previous tweet, many users put a single character, usually an “.” right at the beginning, - to prevent Twitter from handling it like a reply. Celebrities do this a lot:
-But “.@” no more! Twitter will - now automatically show those stage whisper tweets to all your followers — so long as it’s not - tweeted in reply to something else. Those actual replies will remain limited in reach, in - the same way they are now. But Twitter has a way to make sure you can force all your followers - to see your witty comeback, should you wish to do that.
-Introducing the self-retweet, - or a new thing Twitter is allowing its users to do to draw attention to their own tweets and - replies. Once Twitter enables the retweet function for all users to use on their own - tweets, Twitter says, “you can easily Retweet or Quote Tweet yourself when you want to - share a new reflection or feel like a really good one went unnoticed,” Twitter’s announcement - explains.
--
Like that “.@” elimination, - the self-retweet isn’t the result of a totally new invention. It’s already possible to place a link - to your own tweet in a new one. Some users have taken to replying to their own tweets over the - course of many days to revive the entire thread for their followers as a bundled conversation. And - there’s always the manual retweet, although these days that’s considered to be a - very bad thing to do on Twitter. The self-retweet change simply makes it easier to do - something its users were doing already.
-Will hard-core users still - “.@” for old time’s sake? probably, for a little bit. But longtime users are used to adapting to - Twitter’s attempts to absorb the organic, creative workarounds to the platform’s limitations in - the past. Twitter didn’t always allow users to post photos, so someone made TwitPic. Twitter then - made the service irrelevant in 2011, when it announced a new capacity to host photo and - video itself. Twitter didn’t always automatically shorten URLs, so users used link shorteners to - minimize the number of characters a link ate up. Now, Twitter won’t count media - attachments towards the character limit.
-Since the changes haven’t even - rolled out yet, it’s too early to bury the “.@” next to the manual retweet in the graveyard of - obsolete Twitter conventions. But it’s not long for this world.
-Liked that? try - these:
-