SAN FRANCISCO -- Microblogging service Twitter has long been serving as an agora open to all people to discuss, share and spread information about what is happening around the world in 140 characters.

With the change of time and trends in the social networking industry, however, the 9-year-old service is trying, somewhat belatedly, to shift its focus from a text-based service to one brimming with video content, following the footsteps of other services like Facebook.

“Videos are certainly a major part of the future (for Twitter),” Twitter senior vice president of product Kevin Weil told The Korea Herald during the firm’s annual Flight developer conference in San Francisco on Wednesday.

“We invested a ton in both our own video (services) on Twitter and also platforms like Vine and Periscope, both of which are amazing products in their own right but also contribute to the richness of videos on Twitter,” he said.

Twitter introduced an autoplay function that allows users to view videos embedded in tweets without clicking the posts, as well as short video-sharing service Vine and live broadcasting service Periscope earlier this year.

Mentioning the change in the Twitter timeline over the past couple of years that used to show users the most recent tweets rather than relevant tweets as is the case now, the Twitter senior vice president said the company would “continue challenging its core beliefs.”

Videos are retweeted six times more often than photos, according to the firm.

One of the San Francisco-based firm’s core tenets that would go through some changes as early as next year will likely be the 140-character limit, which has been the flagship feature of the social media platform since its start.

The executive said “Twitter is taking it seriously,” regarding a plan to allow Twitter users to write more than 140 characters per tweet.

Some critics have said Twitter should have long ago made the decision to remove its signature 140-character limit and moved on to the next phase with the video services.

“Even though the video services have been hailed by Twitter fans, they may not be attractive enough to significantly boost user growth,” a participant at the Flight event said.

Other social media outlets like Facebook and mobile messengers such as KakaoTalk and Glide have been deploying similar video-based features in recent years.

By Kim Young-won, Korea Herald correspondent (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)