Do you find yourself constantly editing thoughts to fit into the 140 characters' limit on Twitter? Not any more, because your prayers have been answered.
Twitter has rolled out a test version in which you get twice the character limit for your tweets, i.e. 280 characters. It plans to gradually extend this gift to all users in majority of languages, except Japanese, Chinese, and Korean, which can cram more thoughts into lesser characters. However, Twitter is open to reconsidering this exclusion.
When survey showed that about nine percent of tweets are exactly of 140 characters, the staff realised that Twitterati were editing their original train of thought to stay within the character limit.
"Trying to cram your thoughts into a tweet -- we've all been there, and it's a pain," said Aliza Rosen, product manager, and Ikuhiro Ihara, software engineer, in a blog post. "We're doing something new: we're going to try out a longer limit, 280 characters, in languages impacted by cramming."
Talking about the new update, Twitter's blog post stated, "We understand since many of you have been Tweeting for years, there may be an emotional attachment to 140 characters — we felt it, too. But we tried this, saw the power of what it will do, and fell in love with this new, still brief, constraint. We are excited to share this today, and we will keep you posted about what we see and what comes next."
The need for extending the character limit is evident from user reactions after the test version was rolled out to a select few. The move is inspiring varied reactions from users, some ecstatic and some disapproving.
Check out these rib-tickling reactions to "Twitter 280."
