The day has finally arrived: Twitter is reportedly saying goodbye to its 140-character limit – a company trademark all users seem to have a love-hate relationship with. According to a Re/code report, the social media site is looking to launch a product that will allow users to share content that exceeds the character limit.
IS TWITTER FINALLY BOOTING ITS 140 CHARACTER LIMIT?
Although the details of the project are still fuzzy, it is unlikely that the outcome will be too removed from its main, legacy platform. The move could potentially help Twitter gain a slight edge, after its user growth has remained flat for several quarters. According to Fortune, the website still continues to struggle to explain what it is to new users. The character limit could potentially bring a host of new people to the site, the stocks of which have fallen nearly 30 percent this year alone, as reported by Reuters.
In the past, Twitter has relied heavily on SMS, or short message service (aka text messaging), which is limited to 160 characters. Thus, the character limit was put into place in order to ensure that the Tweet would not be cut off. Although Twitter’s SMS activity is still significant in certain developing countries, most people today rely on apps to access the website. As such, the push to forgo the 140 character limit has been instigated by Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s interim CEO who is currently looking to become Twitter’s permanent CEO.
TWITTER’S STRUGGLE TO STAY ON TOP
In the past, Twitter has also implemented other strategies to maximize the amount of available characters for each tweet – mainly due to popular demand. Back in April, the website added the “Retweet with comment” functionality, which gave users the full 140 characters to work with whenever they “retweeted” or reposted a status. The company also dropped the limit for direct messages back in June.
Moreover, Twitter is reportedly re-evaluating how the 140-character limit should be counted. Excluding user handles and links from the total count have been suggested as possible options, according to Re/code.
