Jack Dorsey, co-founder and CEO of Twitter, has revealed that the social network may let go of its 140 character limit without losing “brevity and creativity”.
According to Recode, Twitter is working on a feature called “Beyond 140”, to allow users of the platform tweet as long as 10,000 characters.
In 2015, the social media platform ensured lifted the limit on its direct messaging feature, allowing users to send messages with as much as 10,000 characters.
Responding to reports on the 10,000 words limit, Dorsey was neither here nor there as he said the brevity and creativity would be maintained, while making long texts fit into tweets as text and not picture.
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In a screengrab of a statement written in iOS notes, Dorsey stated that the 140-character limit on Twitter was only implemented to make tweets fit into SMS messages, adding that changes may be needed to meet user needs.
— jack (@jack) January 5, 2016
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“We’ve spent a lot of time observing what people are doing on Twitter, and we see them taking screenshots of text and tweeting it,” Dorsey wrote.
“Instead, what if that text… was actually text? Text that could be searched. Text that could be highlighted. That’s more utility and power.”
He however said majority of tweets will stay short and conversational, but Twitter won’t be shy about making changes to the core product.
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“We’re not going to be shy about building more utility and power into Twitter for people. As long as it’s consistent with what people want to do, we’re going to explore it.”
The matter has since been trending on Twitter, with Nigerians taking advantage of the moment to air their opinion via a Twitter10k hashtag.
https://twitter.com/DadaDupeola/status/684725405765529601
https://twitter.com/gibbs_strength/status/684719669257859072
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10,000 characters. #Twitter10k pic.twitter.com/dxjc0Mwirm
— GrowYourBusiness (@AdQuet) January 6, 2016
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#Twitter10k will be nothing short of another #Facebook. Who wants to be reading essays on TL?
Advertisement— Pheeqy (@pheeqy) January 6, 2016
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#Twitter10k will bring an end to the platforms's brevity and wit. It will also chase many away. @twitter please don't commit harakiri.
— Lolade Adewuyi (@Jololade) January 6, 2016
But I really want to rant about why #Twitter10k character limit shouldn't exist. But then, I don't have enough characters to finish it.
— Mike Ikenwa (@MikeIkenwa) January 6, 2016
https://twitter.com/jadeadeser/status/684714122269741057
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