Twitter now proposes users extra 116 characters for their comments since it was launched in 2006. The microblogging site has announced on Tuesday, the launch of 'retweet with comment' feature. The latter enable users to embed a tweet in their own tweets and therefore getting around its 140 character limit as they write their commentary.
The social network began to test the new feature last summer and its launch is likely to excite its more than 288 million monthly active users. They have now more room to express their thoughts as they send around 500 million tweets per day.
The feature is available on the web, iPhone and will soon be unveiled for Android and users with windows operating system on their phone and tablets.
The new feature will allow users to add their own comments as they press retweet on Twitter. For those who access twitter on their mobile phones, a new 'quote tweet' button is available for them.
Users will from now on be able to use extra 116 characters as they add comments and this come to improve the old feature. The social network used to enable users to embed quoted tweets by cutting and pasting URL.
Techcrunch's Sarah Perez argues that the new feature comes to address a serious issue for the social network users. It now allows people to share comments on tweets without having to shorten the original tweet meaning that its context and meaning will be preserved.
Taiwan-based tech writer Catherine Shu said that one of twitter original charm was that it was forcing users to their rambling thoughts into pitchy sound bites. She further noted that as the platform matures, many influential users have been devising ways to get around the 140 character limit to use Twitter as their main public communication platform.
Twitter users have been devising ways to get around its character limit by posting screenshots of quotes from articles. This inspired Jason Goldam, a former VP of product at Twitter to launch OneShot app project. In addition to this, users have also attempted to enable their loquacity with products like TwitLonger and Jumbo Tweet.
The new feature will render the above mentioned apps useless because the 'retweet with comments' come to offer Twitter users what they were missing. They are now able to express their thoughts above the 140 characters that were previously available. The San Francisco based social network seems to have understood its customers' needs as the feature comes to meet them.
