Have you previously been frustrated with Twitter, or even given up on the social media platform, because of its character limitations? Now, Twitter HQ has decided to finally expand its character count. Twitter will now try out a longer limit of 280 characters in select languages, including English, to allow people to expand on their thoughts.
“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,” says the company.
The main reason for this decision was that Twitter realized the character count limitation was more heavily impacting those tweeting in some languages – such as English, Spanish, Portuguese and French – as compared with others, such as Japanese, Korean and Chinese. The latter group could convey about double the amount of information in one character, compared to languages such as English.
Along with this change, Twitter is also updating the user interface so it can no longer count down the characters until the near end. Instead, a circle will fill in as you approach the limit.
Initially, this new 280-character count will be available to a small, randomized but representative group of Twitter users on iOS, Android and desktop web. The test is only expected to last a few weeks before Twitter plans to make a decision regarding a broader rollout.
This article is excerpted from “Twitter Trials Expanding Tweets from 140 Characters to 280.”