Twitter to update its character limit to 280

Twitter users can now express themselves even more easily as for the first time in 11 years, the social networking site is testing to double the 140 character limit to 280 for its tweets.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted about it, further verifying the news. However, this new update will be limited to a certain amount of users for now. Dorsey said that this move was a small change but a big move for them.

 

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

The move is thought to help users easily express themselves. The company wrote in its official blog that the already existing character limit of 140 was 'a major cause of frustration' as per few users. This new upgrade could also help the firm to attract more users as it was suffering from slow growth, according to Tech Juice.

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Twitter product manager Aliza Rosen wrote, “Trying to cram your thoughts into a Tweet – we’ve all been there, and it’s a pain. 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.”

BBC reported that Rosen also informed that the shift was being tested for all languages including Japanese, Chinese and Korean. Marketers would also be able to benefit from this feature by having more characters with which they can spread their message and through this, Twitter can also make a bit more cash.

However, not all users were delighted because of this new update.

 

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

 

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