Twitter Decided To Double Its Character Limit To 280

Phew. For many, it can be a cause for a sigh of relief. Twitter has announced that the has been testing 280-character tweets, to give the users more space and flexibility to express themselves.

“Our research shows us that the character limit is a major cause of frustration for people tweeting in English,” the company said in a blog post. “When people don’t have to cram their thoughts into 140 characters and actually have some to spare, we see more people tweeting — which is awesome!”

The current limit of 140 characters was inspired by SMS messages which by routine were limited to 160 characters.

Twitter reserved the remaining 20 for the username. As often happens in creative mediums, the constraint spurred creativity, and Twitter became a fast-moving, newsy, jokey, weirdo playground.

The new magic number 280 comes with a package of new questions.

• Will those multi-message “tweetstorms” shrink into a smaller number of tweets, or will the expanded real estate encourage people to write even more?
• What new kinds of jokes and memes are possible at 280 characters that were not possible at 140? 
• Will 280 characters allow for just enough nuance and diplomacy that we may be able to avert global thermonuclear war?

We will soon see what the new world will look like.