A picture is worth a thousand words, except on Twitter, where it is worth precisely 23 characters. That could change very soon, though: Twitter is considering exempting links of any kind, including photos, from its 140-character limit.
Citing a person familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reports that the change could be made in the next two weeks. A Twitter spokesperson refused to confirm or deny the change, telling PCMag that "we don't comment on rumor or speculation."
Tweets were originally intended to be sent via SMS, which imposes a character limit. You can get a lot across in 140 characters, but Twitter users today frequently include links in their tweets. Using Twitter's automatic T.co link-shortening service, you can share any link in no fewer than 23 characters if you're linking to an https (encrypted) site.
Because images also show up as links, that effectively limits any tweet with photos to 117 characters or less, robbing you of nearly 19 percent of what you wanted to say. That leads to a conundrum: do you forgo the picture if you're out of characters, even though Twitter itself says that tweets with photos get 300 percent more engagement than those without?
If the Bloomberg report is accurate, users will no longer have to make that call. But while you can celebrate if this small change goes into effect, don't expect it to portend what some have requested: the total eradication of the 140-character limit. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said in March that the limit is here to say.
"It's a good constraint for us, and it allows for of-the-moment brevity," he said.