Replying to tweets just got a lot more confusing

It's now possible to squeeze in a few extra characters on Twitter. 

Beginning now, usernames will no longer count toward the service's 140-character limit, Twitter announced. The change also means that replies will look a whole lot different than before.

Instead of beginning with usernames, tweet replies will contain only the text of the tweet itself and the handles you're replying to will appear inline. Tweets will still be limited to 140 characters but usernames will no longer count toward that limit in replies.

While this means that Twitter will finally be rid of annoying tweets that begin with ".@", it also means replies could get a lot more complicated. Though Twitter will surface the handles of everyone in a conversation separately from the text of the reply, this could get confusing rather quickly if you're in a conversation with multiple participants.

Here's what it will look like in action.

Now, this is not the first time we're hearing about this change. Twitter first previewed plans to loosen its 140-character limit and change the format for replies last May. The company has been testing variations of the feature since then, Twitter product manager Sasank Reddy writes, noting that early testing shows "that people engage more with conversations on Twitter" with the new format.

Why it took almost a full year to roll out this change, though, is unclear. (Twitter has launched other changes in the interim, like media attachments not counting toward character count and the ability to retweet yourself.) Twitter users have been reporting seeing the new format for replies more and more in recent weeks, so maybe all this time really was just more testing.

Maybe now that it's done, though, the company will finally start work on that edit button.