Twitter drops usernames from replies, giving full 140 characters to respond

Many times when joining a Twitter discussion, getting your point across can be tricky. By including the Twitter handles of others, you can significantly stunt the effectiveness of your messaging. When those handles are added to the response, you lose precious characters that you could respond with. Today, Twitter has announced that you’ll have a full 140 characters to respond with, as @usernames will no longer count toward your 140-character limit.

Instead of the @usernames showing up in the tweet content, the names will appear above the tweet text itself. By removing the names from a tweet, the extra characters can be used in a longer response. Another nifty change is that when hitting the new reply button, users will be able to select who they want the reply to be directed to. If you have a group discussion going on, users can segment certain responses out to individual users.

We’re changing replies so that you have all 140 characters to express yourself.

Learn more: https://t.co/PNWGilbmVd pic.twitter.com/cxBJohZc2Q

— Twitter (@Twitter) March 30, 2017

Twitter says one of the biggest benefits of this new functionality is that reading conversations will become much easier. Instead of trying to decipher the points made throughout a flurry of @usernaming, Twitter will now show that someone replied to another tweet.

The change will be rolling out today. For more information, see the official Twitter blog post.