Chinese Twitter-like platform Sina Weibo will cancel its 140-word limit, a move Twitter is reportedly considering. Sino Weibo management team has sent a letter to its developers on Wednesday.
However, Weibo users have always been allowed to write posts longer than 140 words. But previously they were required to type the extra content on a different site and link back to Weibo.
Launched in August 2009, Sina Weibo is China’s largest social network with 222 million monthly active users as of the third quarter of 2015.
The platform will start a trial with some of its microblog users in about a week on January 28, and lift the word limit for all users a month later on February 28.The new word limit is 2,000 words. The platform will only show the first 140 words on the feed, but readers can click a link to see the extra content.
Twitter is reportedly considering expanding its character count from 140 to 10,000. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted this potential move in early January and explained that Twitter users have been taking screenshots of their text and tweeting it. He said changing the screenshots to actual text can improve search and the longer text could be highlighted.
Twitter has not set a launch date for its new character limit, but tech media outlet Re/code reported that Twitter aims to launch it by the end of the first quarter.