Twitter is growing up, and the latest new feature set includes the ability to tag up to 10 people in a photo as well as the ability to add up to four photos to a tweet. But—and this is big—those tags won't count towards the total character limit. Suddenly, tweets seem kind of big.
Now, how these new features will affect how people use Twitter is a curious mystery. On one hand, tagging features aren't necessarily Earth-shattering. Instagram got tagging almost a year ago, and it still works fine. On the other hand, when you couple the tagging with the photo album feature, it's pretty obvious that Twitter's opening itself up to me a much more image-driven platform. (And those rumors about streamlining mentions and hashtags might be true.) After all, it needs to compete with Instagram!
But as with all things Twitter—the @ mention, the hashtag, the retweet—users will probably decide how this will work. [Twitter]