Social media site Twitter is trialling longer character limits to help users “easily express themselves”. Twitter currently limits tweets to 140 characters, but has doubled that to 280 characters for a small group of users. The current character limit was “a major cause of frustration” for some users, the firm said in a blog post. The firm has been suffering from slowing growth and the shift could be one way for the firm to widen its appeal and attract new users. “Trying to cram your thoughts into a Tweet – we’ve all been there, and it’s a pain,” Twitter product manager Aliza Rosen wrote. Ms Rosen said the longer character limit was being tested in all languages bar Japanese, Chinese and Korean which she said could convey more information in a single character. “We understand since many of you have been Tweeting for years, there may be an emotional attachment to 140 characters – we felt it, too. “But we tried this, saw the power of what it will do, and fell in love with this new, still brief, constraint,” she said. Twitter’s founder Jack Dorsey was one of the first to try the new limit out, saying it was “a small change, but a big move for us”.
This is a small change, but a big move for us. 140 was an arbitrary choice based on the 160 character SMS limit. Proud of how thoughtful the team has been in solving a real problem people have when trying to tweet. And at the same time maintaining our brevity, speed, and essence! https://t.co/TuHj51MsTu
— jack (@jack) September 26, 2017
But not all users were convinced. Writer Sarah Kendzior said it was too long.
In case anyone is wondering why 280 characters is a bad idea, it’s because THE TWEET IS NOW TOO LONG TO FIT ON TWITTER pic.twitter.com/WaUOMLAYiQ
— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) September 26, 2017
And The Times journalist Sathnam Sanghera pointed out that US President Donald Trump, famed for his prolific tweeting, could get more characters.
I don’t want to wake up in the morning if Donald Trump is one of the people who gets 280 characters as part of this test
— Sathnam Sanghera (@Sathnam) September 26, 2017
But Twitter said the change could mean people tweet more frequently. “When people don’t have to cram their thoughts into 140 characters and actually have some to spare, we see more people tweeting,” Ms Rosen said. Source BBC
