New Twitter rules get you bang for your 140 character buck

The changes, which will come into effect in the coming months, were announced today in a blog post and are all about changing what can use up your valuable characters. When the changes take effect, things like @names in replies and media attachments will no longer be counted in your 140 characters.

Here's a rundown of the changes in full:

• Replies

When replying to a Tweet, @names will no longer count toward the 140-character count.

• Media attachments 

When you add attachments like photos, GIFs, videos, polls, or Quote Tweets, that media will no longer count as characters within your Tweet.

• Retweet and Quote Tweet yourself

[Twitter] will be enabling the Retweet button on your own Tweets, so 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.

• Goodbye, .@

New Tweets that begin with a username will reach all your followers. (That means you’ll no longer have to use the ”.@” convention, which people currently use to broadcast Tweets broadly.) If you want a reply to be seen by all your followers, you will be able to Retweet it to signal that you intend for it to be viewed more broadly.

So what are your thoughts? We think it's a positive change and most certainly a better than the rumours earlier in the year which suggested users would get 10,000 character limits. We'll be looking forward to trying out the new changes when they come into effect later this year.