Twitter aims to enhance appeal with new 280-character tweet limit

Social networking platform Twitter is set to roll out the biggest ever change to its platform – its 140 character limit will be now expanded to 280 characters. San Francisco-based Twitter said the new limit, aims to address “a major cause of frustration” for many users.

Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey fired off what may be one of the first expanded tweets.“This is a small change, but a big move for us,” he wrote.

“140 was an arbitrary choice... Proud of how thoughtful the team has been in solving a real problem people have when trying to tweet. ”A “small group” of users will see the new limits before Twitter decides on rolling out the changes more broadly, the company said.

“Trying to cram your thoughts into a tweet—we’ve all been there, and it’s a pain,” product manager Aliza Rosen and software engineer Ikuhiro Ihara said 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.”

Twitter planned to leave the old limit in place for tweets in languages such as Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. It was done because internal data showed written characters in those languages packed plenty into the alloted space.

“Our research shows us that the character limit is a major cause of frustration for people tweeting in English, but it is not for those tweeting in Japanese,” Rosen and Ihara said.

“Also, in all markets, when people don’t have to cram their thoughts into 140 characters and actually have some to spare, we see more people tweeting.

”Twitter, which became a public company in 2013, has never reported a profit even though it has built a loyal base of celebrities, journalists and political figures. A notable and prolific tweeter is none other than US President Donald Trump.

In its most recent quarter, Twitter reported its base of monthly active users was unchanged at 328 million compared to the first three months of the year. 

Its growth has failed to keep pace with the social network leader Facebook, which has some two billion users, and Facebook-owned Instagram, with 800 million.

“We’re hoping fewer tweets run into the character limit, which should make it easier for everyone to tweet,” Rosen and Ihara said in the blog post.

“We understand since many of you have been Tweeting for years, there may be an emotional attachment to 140 characters... But we tried this, saw the power of what it will do, and fell in love with this new, still brief, constraint.”

Twitter has been seeking to draw in users by offering more video including live streaming of sporting events, aiming to broaden its appeal.The messaging platform reported a net loss of $116 million in the second quarter, slightly wider than its $107 million loss a year ago.

It remained an open question whether the new tweet limit would ignite the growth an engagement Twitter needs to compete in the fast-moving social media segment.

“The more they expand, the more they start looking like Facebook,” Enderle Group analyst Rob Enderle said of Twitter.

“And if they start looking like Facebook, then Facebook will take them out and has the warchest for it.”

The move by Twitter could also be rendered moot by lifestyle changes brought about by trends in voice-commanded digital assistants, said Gartner analyst Brian Blau.

“What are tweets in those worlds?” Blau said. “We see Twitter sort of struggling to get this business right while everyone else is moving in a another direction.”