Twitter announced it's testing out a new feature with a "small group" of people: a doubled character limit.
Can’t fit your Tweet into 140 characters? 🤔
We’re trying something new with a small group, and increasing the character limit to 280! Excited about the possibilities? Read our blog to find out how it all adds up. 👇https://t.co/C6hjsB9nbLCan’t fit your Tweet into 140 characters? 🤔
We’re trying something new with a small group, and increasing the character limit to 280! Excited about the possibilities? Read our blog to find out how it all adds up. 👇https://t.co/C6hjsB9nbL— Twitter (@Twitter) September 26, 2017September 26, 2017
The company says 140 characters may not be enough space for folks to express themselves. In a blog post, Twitter shared some of its product research regarding the 140 character limit. It seems nearly every language supported on Twitter — save for Japanese, Chinese, and Korean — runs up against that 140 mark time and time again.
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. … We see that 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%). … 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.
Before you get too excited (or incredibly frustrated) by the change, know this: Twitter has yet to roll out the feature to everyone. The company says it will be collecting data and feedback from its test group before it makes any changes.
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.
In any case, Twitter says it plans to keep everyone posted regarding this possible change in character limit, so keep your eye on that @Twitter account!
Are you looking forward to having more characters to express your thoughts (and hot takes) on Twitter or do you want the service to keep things right where they are? Give us a shout in the comments or — even better — over on Twitter!
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