Twitter reportedly looking to dump 140-character limit
TWITTER has a plan to dump its 140-character count so that people can tweet large slabs of text. The reaction from users has been unforgiving.
IF brevity really is the soul of wit, then Twitter looks set to lose its soul.
According to a report in the tech site re/code today, Twitter is looking to ditch the 140-character limit that often has tweeters sweating on how to get across their latest social media message in as few as words as possible.
While less has always been more on Twitter, the report says interim CEO Jack Dorsey has put his stamp of approval on a plan to allow people to share large pieces of text on Twitter.
It’s not clear how the system will be implemented. Possibly tweets will stay at 140 characters while larger slabs of text will be able to be embedded in a tweet.
The motivation for the change is money. As Twitter is looking to evolve into a more mainstream communication, allowing longer tweets is seen as a lure for advertisers.
The reaction to the news on Twitter has been short and sharp — tweeters don’t need 140 characters to say anything more than 140 characters is a bad idea.
YES @mims Making #tweets longer is such a categorically terrible idea. Making mentions, links, images not count toward 140 is a great one.
— Stephen E. Wright (@sewrighter) September 29, 2015
Twitter to launch longer tweets. Twitter clearly has no idea how to grow, just blatantly following FB at this point. http://t.co/y1s0BmjpxQ
— Micah Allen (@neuroconscience) September 29, 2015
In all reality nobody tweets gonna be read if they're longer than 140 characters
— Charles BARKley (@_MikeSinatra) September 29, 2015
#Twitter will no longer require tweets to be under 140 characters. In other news, "tweets" will now be called "Saturday Night Live" @nbcsnl
— Uncle Jeffe (@unclejeffe) September 29, 2015
I don't even read some 140 character tweets, you think I'm gonna read tweets longer than that?!
— Vince (Kip) (@KipThaRipper) September 29, 2015
