That’s right: Twitter is increasing its character limit on text posts to 280 letters from 140, starting with a subset of users. The organization is describing the move as a test, but the lettering is on the wall for this succinct art form.
“Although we feel positive about our data and the positive influence this change will have, we want to try it out with a small group of users before we make a judgment to launch to everyone,” the company said in a blog post-Tuesday. “What means most is that this works for our community we will be gathering data and gathering feedback along the way. We’re expecting fewer Tweets run into the letter limit, which should give it easier for everyone to Tweet.”
Even though Twitter has been advising at the change for more than a year, it is running out the longer limit gradually for fear of alienating its most hardcore users.
“140 characters aren’t any easy construct, but that’s precisely why I love it,” says Jill Sherman, head of social strategy at DigitasLBi. “People and labels are forced to stop and think about what they really require to say. And it makes the feed pithy and easily scannable. I’ll clearly miss it.”
The pressure became a defining brand for Twitter, making its users compress their thoughts into only the most fundamental words. Twitter users caught a text message-like shorthand that became its own language “you are” matched “ur”—and, more significantly, big ideas were often overcome to hashtags. And it made equals of everyone, in a way: From the famous wordsmiths to the leader of the free world to the random user, everybody shared the effort of editing their views down to their distinctive point.
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