Twitter allows longer tweets than regular 140-character ones

Twitter launched longer tweets on Monday as it looked to attract new users amid stagnant growth for the social media platform.

The 140 character count will still remain but attachments such as photos, videos, GIFs, polls, and quote tweets, will no longer count toward the limit, Twitter announced via a tweet.

Twitter did not go as far as introducing a 10,000 character limit, a move rumored earlier this year. But the U.S. social media firm has stuck to its core offering by giving users more scope to share media, something that it hopes will boost engagement.

Monthly active users on Twitter have stuck just above 300 million with the latest figures at 313 million for the second quarter. The lack of user growth has worried investors with shares in the firm down over 20 percent year-to-date and rumors circling that the company could be a takeover target.

The company has been trying to broaden its appeal to attract new users against the likes of Instagram and Snapchat. This year Twitter struck a deal with the National Football League (NFL) to live stream Thursday night games during the 2016 season. The first of those games was last Thursday and over 2 million people watched the game on Twitter.

Source: CNBC