Twitter is allegedly considering a 10,000 character limit for tweets

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Micro-blogging startup Twitter is considering ditching the 140-character limit for tweets, one of its defining features, Re/code reported Tuesday citing sources familiar with the company’s plans.

According to the article, the company is considering a new 10,000-character limit which would basically allow users to post longer-form content in a single tweet, as opposed to spamming their followers’ feeds with a bunch of tweets.

Longer tweets are reportedly “coming soon to Twitter,” as per Re/Code’s Kurt Wagner, or as early as the end of the first quarter. An internal build of the feature defaults to displaying the first 140 characters of a longer-form tweet, prompting you to tap the tweet to show the full content.

“There is no official launch date set in stone,” reads the article, speculating that it’s also possible the character limit “could fluctuate before it rolls out the final product, which people inside Twitter refer to as ‘Beyond 140’”.

Given that Twitter in August removed the 140-character limit for Direct Messages, doing the same for tweets would be the next logical step for the company. Following the change, DMs on Twitter are now limited to 10,000-character per a single message.

Bringing that same limit to tweets might do wonders for Twitter’s stickiness because many people, this author included, find the 140-character limit annoying at times.

Some folks even resort to tricks such as tweeting out screenshots of their thoughts jotted down in Notes app because they wouldn’t fit a single tweet.

Perhaps introducing the 10,000-character limit will help increase engagement on Twitter as people who post on Medium, Google+ and other blogging platforms might consider re-posting their articles on Twitter in their entirety.

It would seem that the company is thinking the same because they’re reportedly working out a plan for how to deal with potential spamming issues that might arise with an expanded character count, according to Re/Code.

Source: Re/Code