On Tuesday Twitter announced the long overdue news that they will be expanding their efforts to allow users to “do more”. The changes will take effect in the next few months, and although users will not be able to use more than 140 characters, tweets including @names in a reply will not count against the user.   Some of the changes being made will include; @name replies will not count against the character limit, as well as GIFs, photos and other media attachments. Additionally if you would like to retweet yourself you will now be able to do that as well.  

Too Little Too Late?

Much of the seemingly “new innovations” that Twitter is now try to include are simply put, not that exciting. These updates should have come around a long time ago, and is likely not to get the reaction they are looking for.  

The Need To Expand

Although this update will definitely be welcomed by those who are already constantly on Twitter, it doesn’t seem as though it will do much for those who aren’t on Twitter yet. It’s not as though people without Twitter have been waiting for this update to come before they would start using the platform. In order to become a platform that can compete against Facebook and Snapchat, Twitter will need to think about how it can reach more users by bringing more and bigger innovations. It seems as though Twitter is stuck on just trying to keep its own users on the site, instead of bringing in new ones. Websites that can’t bring in new users eventually become irrelevant. My question for Twitter (In 140 characters) is: “What steps can Twitter take to rebrand itself as to attract new users, rather than just keeping current ones?” I will update with a reply.