Tuesday, November 5

Are You Happy With Loooonger? Twitter Rolls Out 280-Char Tweets

Testing over! 280 character tweets are actually good! Twitter officially announced that it is putting 140-character limit tweets a thing of past. #280character is the new cool.

Twitter said on Tuesday, that after a global test about making the tweets two times longer, the result showed that it actually is good. The test was launched in September, with a goal to ensure “the speed and brevity” said Twitter in a blog post.

“During the first few days of the test many people Tweeted the full 280 limit because it was new and novel, but soon after behavior normalized (more on this below). We saw when people needed to use more than 140 characters, they Tweeted more easily and more often. But importantly, people Tweeted below 140 most of the time and the brevity of Twitter remained,” the blog quoted.

With the previous limit in place, 9 percent of tweets hit 140 characters. But during the test of expanded tweets, only 1 percent of tweets hit 280 characters. Twitter also claimed that with longer tweets, it was easier for people to create more engaging tweets by sharing more info and tagging more. “People in the experiment told us that a higher character limit made them feel more satisfied with how they expressed themselves on Twitter, their ability to find good content, and Twitter overall.”

However Japanese,Chinese and Korean languages will continue to have 140 characters because “cramming” is not an issue in this languages.

Here are 140 (left) and 280 (right) character Tweets in the timeline.

Unrest can be seen among people with mixed feelings for the 280 character. Some accept it and some said that all they needed was an “EDIT” button.

 

Aaaaand mooore!!