Twitter is overhauling some of its rules to try to make itself simpler to use and more attractive to newcomers.

Members will be able to add multimedia to tweets – including pictures and videos – without eating into the 140-characters-a-post limit.

The service is also changing the way it handles conversations between users.

Twitter co-founder and chief executive Jack Dorsey told the his aim was to ensure that “when people tweet, it makes sense”.

The changes, as outlined by Twitter, will be:

• media attachments, such as photos and videos, will no longer count towards the character limit
• @names in reply to tweets will not be counted
• people will be able to retweet and quote-tweet themselves, enabling them to resurface any of their previous posts and add new commentary

In addition, any new tweet – ie one that isn’t a reply to someone else’s tweet – that starts with a username will now be seen by all of a person’s followers.