Twitter has announced it will simplify Tweets in the coming months, making it faster and easier for people to express themselves with more room in their 140-character tweets.

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 an @name will be seen by all followers.

“One of the biggest priorities for this year is to refine our product and make it simpler,” said Jack Dorsey, Twitter CEO and cofounder. “We’re focused on making Twitter a whole lot easier and faster. This is what Twitter is great at – what’s happening now, live conversation and the simplicity that we started the service with.

“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.”

In April, Twitter has announced a new update to its direct messaging function, the message symbol will now be inbuilt into tweets making it easier to direct message someone straight away. Direct messaging joins a long line of new features on the platform, it is the eighth announcement this year. Twitter’s latest changes includes descriptors for the visually impaired, First View which puts video advertising smack bang at the top of Twitter’s timeline, adjusting the timeline algorithm, rolling out a GIF library, easier customer service with direct messaging to brands and more direct customer feedback, as well as the new lightning bolt tab Twitter Moments.