I really do hope you are, because Jack Dorsey himself, co-founder and CEO of Twitter, tweeted a screenshot of a 1317-character long statement (presumably) confirming the news earlier this week: Twitter’s 140-character limit is to increase to 10,000.
There’s no official date yet, just like there’s no official announcement yet. But according to very well informed sources (and almost every news provider around the globe), this radical change is currently being tested and will take effect towards the end of March. Yes, March!
The Twitter world didn’t take it very well. The idea of giving up Twitter’s defining (some might say only original) feature seems to the most affectionate users outrageous and scary. What about those short, sweet and real-time tweets that you can read, digest and forget in less thana minute? If you sense your feelings may be hurt too, you’ll be able to share your despair by adding the hashtag #twitter10k to your (for now, still short) tweets.
The reason behind this Twitter revolution may be found in the blue bird’s worrying failure to keep up with the user growth of other networks, especially Facebook and Instagram. We saw the first attempts to increase user growth last year when Twitter introduced Moments and the new 10,000-character limit for Direct Messages. Well, let’s just say that Mr Dorsey and his team ought to come up with more powerful ideas.
According to his tweet, Twitter’s CEO wants to give users a better, improved experience. Expanding the characters limit seems like a good solution to the screenshots of longer text and ‘tweetstorms’ that populate the Twittersphere every day.
The same very well informed sources revealed some clues about the new Twitter design. It may be reassuring for the more conservative to know that the new feature will have little impact on the current interface. Tweets will continue to show 140 characters only but a call to action button (maybe “read more”?) will then reveal the full tweet.
Needless to say, the debate is very hot. Longer tweets require more time and attention from the user and – let’s face it – are more likely to be used as spam. On the other hand, our conversations will be freed from very tight numeric limits, becoming clearer and easier to follow. It could also mean we as businesses are able to give better customer service, without the need to immediately direct the customer to DM.
While we wait for it to happen for real, we can’t but fantasise about what it will be like to write, well, long tweets on Twitter. So what do you think the new Twitter experience will be like?
– Alessia, Social Media Coordinator