Starting today, you may be able to fit more into a single tweet.
Update (November 7): Twitter has announced that the new tweet limit is being rolled out to all users beginning today, except for those writing in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.
The test began in late September, and most people who received access took advantage of the new limit by tweeting a lot of dumb shit. The slew of longer tweets killed the social network’s brevity, Twitter admits, but the sarcastic tweets have now died down:
We – and many of you – were concerned that timelines may fill up with 280 character Tweets, and people with the new limit would always use up the whole space. But that didn’t happen. Only 5% of Tweets sent were longer than 140 characters and only 2% were over 190 characters. As a result, your timeline reading experience should not substantially change, you’ll still see about the same amount of Tweets in your timeline.
Original (September 26): Twitter has announced that they’re beginning to test a 280-character limit around the globe, save for in the Japanese, Chinese, and Korean languages (where more characters are less necessary).
The social media website says statistics have showed them there’s demand around the world to fit more into a tweet. For example, tweets in English hit the current 140 limit 9% of the time.
“Although we feel confident about our data and the positive impact this change will have, we want to try it out with a small group of people before we make a decision to launch to everyone,” they write on their blog. “What matters most is that this works for our community – we will be collecting data and gathering feedback along the way. We’re hoping fewer Tweets run into the character limit, which should make it easier for everyone to Tweet.”
Some of Twitter’s brass, including creator Jack Dorsey, used the new feature to explain further:
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
Although they’re not promising that it’ll roll out to everyone, it seems hard to imagine that they’ll revert the 280-count users back to 140. In other words, I think the expanded limit will be here to stay.
One wonders if President Donald Trump has the new limit, and what his tweets will look like now that the character count has doubled.
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