As predicted last week, Twitter has announced changes to how the social media platform calculates what counts towards its 140-character limit for posts, with the rules governing replies, media attachments and retweets all changing in an effort to make the service more flexible and encourage new users.

The changes will impact three key areas:

• Replies – When replying to a tweet, @names will no longer count towards the 140-character limit, no matter how many are including, making conversations between multiple Twitter users easier to carry out. In addition, tweets that start with an @name will now appear on your followers timelines unless they are specifically replying to another users tweet, removing the need for the “.@name” convention, but meaning that initial tweets to other users will no longer be semi-private.

• Media attachments – Attachments including photos, videos, polls, GIFs and quoted tweets will no longer count towards the character limit, enabling users to provide more commentary on media they link to.

• Retweets – Users will be able to use the Retweet button on their own tweets, reposting their own content both as a straightforward retweet or as a quoted tweet, and enabling them to share new reflections on previous tweets.

The changes, which will take effect over the next few months, will have a significant impact on how Twitter functions, so developers are being provided with a number of updated guidelines on how to adapt their products which may integrate the social media service. Public REST and Streaming APIs, as well as display products like Fabrics Twitter Kit will all be impacted, as will the API for Twitter ads.

“Over the past decade, the tweet has evolved from a simple 140-character text message to a rich canvas for creative expression featuring photos, videos, hashtags, Vines, and more,” said Todd Sherman, senior product manager at Twitter. “You can already do a lot in a tweet, but we want you to be able to do even more.

“Were exploring ways to make existing uses easier and enable new ones, all without compromising the unique brevity and speed that make Twitter the best place for live commentary, connections, and conversations.”