Recent news of Twitter contemplating to lift the character limit of 140 on tweets and rather expanding to a massive 10,000 has been met with diverse reaction from 300 million of its audience.
The news read that the project internally titled ‘Beyond 140’ might commence at the end of March. The extension of character limit was viewed as a goal to widen Twitter’s user base, hence generating more revenue. This move was predicted to be a way of making Twitter more approachable and vast, similar to Facebook.
The news was viewed as a speculation; until Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey had something to share that ironically could not be cramped down in 140 characters. He posted a long statement on Twitter, as a screenshot.
— Jack (@jack) January 5, 2016
Defending the idea on Twitter, he said, “We’ve spent a lot of time observing what people are doing on Twitter, and we see them taking screenshots of text and tweeting it. Instead, what if that text was actually text? Text that could be searched. Text that could be highlighted. That’s more utility and power.”
By imposing the character limit of 140 for all of Twitter’s existence, the restriction has forced users to write crisp and concise, creating a quirky culture of conversation that has evolved to define the social media wire. On the contrary, it has also pushed users away from the site, if they wanted to express or read longer texts.
#WeWant140 has been trending on the micro-blogging site from quite some time now.
Dear @twitter I don't want 2 write essay/novel in twitter. Keep it @ 140. Already hav FB to post long dirty status. #WeWant140 @TwitterIndia
— MOHAMED RIYAZ (@ursriyaz) January 7, 2016
Conveying the message in 140 characters is an Art.. Don't Kill art and artists by making Twitter text limit to 10000 #WeWant140 — ആദാമിന്റെ മകന് (@sayir07) January 7, 2016
Yes #WeWant140 , Because we are already irritated with WHATSAPP and Facebook Msgs @twitter @TwitterIndia
— Engineer बाबा™✋ (@ImBhaumil) January 7, 2016
In such a scenario will Expanding from its core ideology be wise for Twitter?