Twitter Officially Rolls Out 280 Character Limit

Twitter is officially rolling out its expansion to 280 characters across the entire platform, the company announced on Tuesday.

The upgrade follows a September beta test in which approximately 10 percent of users were granted 280 character privileges – noting at the time that the longer character count will allow users to express more of their thoughts without running out of room to tweet.

Thomas Wictor fans will be happy.

TechCrunch reports:

The decision was met with a fair amount of controversy, given that one of Twitter’s defining characteristics is the brevity of users’ posts.

Many argued that the increase to 280 characters would make Twitter less readable, as longer tweets filled their timelines.

Others suggested that Twitter’s focus on a feature no one really asked for was diverting its attention from more critical problems – like the rampant abuse, harassment and bullying it’s become known for unfortunately.

And still more argued that the expansion doesn’t really mean people will be able to better express themselves – they’ll just say the same thing, but use more words to do so.

One particularly funny tweet on that subject even went viral.

A redlined and edited version of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s 280-character tweet demonstrated how it was possible to shrink the tweet’s word count down without losing its meaning.

Twitter’s user base is somewhat split on whether the change would ruin Twitter. Tech media – outside of a couple level-headed responses – seemed to be opposed to the change.

In addition, one poll from last month found more Americans were in favor of the expansion than opposed to it, and the majority had no opinion.

Crammed timelines? 

Addressing concerns over timelines filled with wordy tweets, Twitter said that during the trial period, most people with 280 character privileges continued to tweet below 140 characters, most of the time – with only 5 percent of tweets exceeding the old limit, and only 2 percent over 190 characters.

Only one percent of tweets hit the new 280 character limit, the company reported.

Notably, Twitter claims that those who had more room to tweet received more likes, retweets and @mentions, gained more followers, and spent more time on Twitter. However, it didn’t quantify these findings with hard data. –TechCrunch

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