We’ve been hearing rumours about Twitter changing its character limit from 140 to 10,000 for some time now, much to many people’s dismay. With so many changes taking place on social platforms on a daily basis, and so many rumours flying around, we really didn’t know whether to believe it. But now, Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey has officially laid that one to rest.
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The 140-character limit on Twitter is here to stay. At least for now – with no foreseeable change in sight. In a short interview on The Today Show, marking the 10 years of Twitter this year, the programme’s host Matt Lauer asked the obvious question.
[quote] 140 characters… the limit… is it staying? If it’s going away, when?[/quote]
to receive a straight answer that
[quote]its’ staying… it’s a good constraint for us. It allows for the of-the-moment brevity[/quote]
While the 10,000 limit was applied to Twitter’s direct messages a while ago – there’s no good reason for them to be limited to 140 – the message is clear. Twitter favours brevity in it’s approach to content. An I feel that’s a good thing, since changing the character limit would change the platform fundamentally. It’s also a good thing because Twitter has comfortably occupied it’s own space as the king of microblogging platforms… and to be honest, why would it want to change that.
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And although it might not be understood by all, it’s users are very protective of it. If Twitter has a growth problem now, imagine what would happen if it started making major changes, its purpose would be diluted. Saying that though, Twitter did recently introduce an “algorithmic feed” or sorts, and we all know how people reacted to that. But for now, that’s probably as far as the company’s willing to go.
Either way, we can expect more changes. Those are always on the cards.
Image credit: Forbes.com