Twitter has begun testing doubling the character limit of tweets with some users.
The social network said it hoped the move would stop people having to ‘cram’ their thoughts into 140 characters.
‘We want every person around the world to easily express themselves on Twitter, so we’re doing something new: we’re going to try out a longer limit, 280 characters, in languages impacted by cramming (which is all except Japanese, Chinese, and Korean)’ the social network said.
The social network said it hoped the move would stop people having to ‘cram’ their thoughts into 140 characters.
‘Trying to cram your thoughts into a Tweet – we’ve all been there, and it’s a pain,’ said Aliza Rosen of Twitter, announcing the tests.
‘Interestingly, this isn’t a problem everywhere people Tweet. For example, when I (Aliza) Tweet in English, I quickly run into the 140 character limit and have to edit my Tweet down so it fits.
‘Sometimes, I have to remove a word that conveys an important meaning or emotion, or I don’t send my Tweet at all.
‘But when Iku Tweets in Japanese, he doesn’t have the same problem. He finishes sharing his thought and still has room to spare.
‘This is because in languages like Japanese, Korean, and Chinese you can convey about double the amount of information in one character as you can in many other languages, like English, Spanish, Portuguese, or French.
What the tweets will look like: Twitter revealed this screenshot showing a normal tweet (left) and a new ‘supertweet’ (right)
Twitter said it had found a small percent of Tweets sent in Japanese have 140 characters (only 0.4%).
But in English, a much higher percentage of Tweets have 140 characters (9%), it said.
Most Japanese Tweets are 15 characters while most English Tweets are 34.
‘Our research shows us that the character limit is a major cause of frustration for people Tweeting in English, but it is not for those Tweeting in Japanese,’ it said.
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
‘Also, in all markets, when people don’t have to cram their thoughts into 140 characters and actually have some to spare, we see more people Tweeting – which is awesome!’
However, the firm said it had not yet made a final decision of increasing the limit for all users.
‘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. ‘
Originally, our constraint was 160 (limit of a text) minus username. But we noticed @biz got 1 more than @jack. For fairness, we chose 140. Now texts are unlimited. Also, we realize that 140 isn’t fair—there are differences between languages. We’re testing the limits. Hello 280!
— Biz Stone (@biz) September 26, 2017
Twitter is about brevity. It’s what makes it such a great way to see what’s happening. Tweets get right to the point with the information or thoughts that matter. That is something we will never change.’
News reports in January 2016 said that Twitter was running internal tests for longer tweets and considering a limit as high as 10,000 characters.
Twitter’s Jack Dorsey said ‘This is a small change, but a big move for us.’
Though Twitter is ubiquitous in media because of frequent use by U.S. President Donald Trump and many celebrities, the company has struggled financially.
For the second quarter, it reported a loss of $116 million and zero growth in the number of users, at 328 million people.
Facebook Inc has 2 billion users.
A higher character limit was inspired by how people use Twitter when writing in Chinese, Japanese and Korean, the company said.
Twitter said it had found a small percent of Tweets sent in Japanese have 140 characters (only 0.4%). But in English, a much higher percentage of Tweets have 140 characters (9%), it said.