Twitter has officially confirmed rumors surrounding the removal of media and @replies from the 140 character count.
Media attachments, such as photos and videos, will no longer count toward the character limit. @names in reply to Tweets will be removed from the count and people will now be able to Retweet and Quote Tweet themselves, enabling them to resurface any of their previous Tweets and add new commentary. In addition, any new Tweet beginning with a @name will be seen by all followers.
We’re not giving up on the idea of Twitter being in the moment. That concept of brevity, speed and live conversation – being able to think of something and put it out to the world instantly – that’s what’s most important. We’re always going to look for opportunities to make Tweets a lot more expressive, and enable people to say what they want to say. As long as things are fast, easy, simple and expressive, we’re going to look at what we can do to make Twitter a better experience. – Jack Dorsey, Twitter CEO
While app updates will follow to enable this feature Twitter’s website will have this running immediately.