Twitter Considering 10,000-Character Limit for Tweets
Twitter Considering 10,000-Character Limit for Tweets
By Kurt Wagner
January 5, 2016, 8:47 AM PST
Twitter is building a new feature that will allow users
to tweet things longer than the traditional 140-character limit, and the
company is targeting a launch date toward the end of Q1, according to multiple
sources familiar with the company’s plans. Twitter is currently considering a
10,000 character limit, according to these sources. That’s the same character
limit the company uses for its Direct Messages product, so it isn’t a complete
surprise.
There is no official launch date set in stone, these
sources say. It’s also possible the character limit could fluctuate before it
rolls out the final product, which people inside Twitter refer to as “Beyond
140.” Re/code first reported that Twitter was building a product like this back
in September. A Twitter spokesperson declined to comment.
Twitter is currently testing a version of the product in
which tweets appear the same way they do now, displaying just 140 characters,
with some kind of call to action that there is more content you can’t see.
Clicking on the tweets would then expand them to reveal more content. The point
of this is to keep the same look and feel for your timeline, although this
design is not necessarily final, sources say.
The design aspect is key. Making Tweets bigger by adding
more content or bigger pictures has diminished user engagement in the past,
according to one source. That makes sense. If tweets take a long time to consume
or take up more space on your screen, it’s likely that you’ll view (and engage
with) fewer of them. So Twitter is trying to add more content without
disrupting the way you currently scroll through your timeline.
It’s hard to tell if changing the character limit will
make much of a difference for Twitter. CEO Jack Dorsey has been looking for
ways to jumpstart user growth for some time, and the company has thrown a
number of product updates at users (including new event summaries called
Moments) to make this happen. None of it seems to be working, and giving users
more real estate to share their thoughts may not be the answer.
Still, it’s an important update in what it represents: A
willingness to change one of Twitter’s most established product features. The
140-character limit has been around as long as Twitter has; it’s part of the
product’s personality. Expanding the limit is a sign that Twitter and Jack
Dorsey are willing to make serious changes in hopes of luring new users.
Twitter is also tinkering with the idea of changing its reverse chronological
timeline — another core Twitter feature.
With regards to expanded tweets, Twitter is also working
out a plan for how to deal with potential spamming issues that might arise with
an expanded character count, according to sources. It’s unknown, for example,
if Twitter will restrict how many users can be mentioned in a single tweet, but
the company is apparently thinking through those scenarios. Twitter plans to
talk with some of its analytics and measurement partners to prepare them to
handle longer tweets beginning later this month, sources say.
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