Loading...

How is Twitter going to change after it tweaks its 140-character limit?

Loading...

If you often grapple to fit your thoughts in 140-character tweets, things may improve a bit for you after a few days.

Twitter Inc. is set to roll out a change to its core product on 19 September to allow space for a few more characters, tech news portal The Verge reported, citing two people familiar with the microblogging site's plans.

Loading...

As part of the change, Twitter will not count GIFs, images, videos and polls in the 140-character limit. It will also stop counting user names if they are placed at the beginning of the tweet. This will give users a little more flexibility to engage and carry out discussions on Twitter.

Although Twitter has not confirmed the dates for the launch, in May it had notified the users that it would be doing away with the character limit.

"This is the most notable change we've made in recent times around conversation in particular, and around giving people the full expressiveness of the 140 characters. I'm excited to see even more dialog because of this," Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey told The Verge in May.

Loading...

An email query by Techcircle.in to Twitter to confirm the development did not elicit any response till the time of filing this report.

Twitter user Apoorv Sood, who is popular for his Twitter handle @Trendulkar on Twitter, has mixed feelings about the company's new plans. Sood feels an increase in the content will make the social networking website cluttered although he says that content creators and brands may benefit with this move.

"It's a little obscure at the first thought. I feel it's going to hamper the clean look and feel of the timeline as the tweets will now be longer and less content will be accommodated on a single scroll of your phone screen," he says. "I am a fan of the 140-character limit, hence not really excited about this new feature. Only time will tell if I change my mind after experiencing it."

Loading...

Twitter user Nikhil Popat, however, is excited about the new move. Popat, who uses the handle @CricCrazyNiks, has been using the platform since 2010 and has tweeted 306,000 times.

"As such you see less text today and more media—photos, GIFs. People who like to converse a lot will enjoy the change the most. We might see more stories in threads with more content. Overall, those who tweet a lot will benefit the most," says Popat.

It is still unclear if Twitter will roll out all the features simultaneously or it will work on a different strategy to launch one feature at a time.

Loading...

What, however, is clear is that 10 years after its launch, Twitter will allow users to see more visual content, engage in discussions and offer greater room to express themselves freely.

Like this report? Sign up for our daily newsletter to get our top reports.


Sign up for Newsletter

Select your Newsletter frequency