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Twitter closer to allowing longer tweets of up to 10,000 characters



greyseagull

New member
Jul 1, 2012
2,023
West Worthing
Not sure if I'm a fan of this to be honest: http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/artic...owing-longer-tweets-of-up-to-10000-characters

Twitter closer to allowing longer tweets of up to 10,000 characters

Twitter is considering ditching its 140-character limit in tweets. After 24 hours of speculation it seems the the social media company is considering a new 10,000 character limit - the same as for Direct Messages. It's the latest effort by the firm to appeal to a wider audience. Twitter CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey has said he isn't definitely set on sticking with 140 characters.

Twitter.jpg

If Twitter allowed tweets of up to 10,000 characters, it could produce 1,700-word messages, based on the size of Dorsey's extended post. In his message, Jack Dorsey wrote that Twitter had already noticed that many of its 300 million users already have been including screenshots of longer texts in their tweets.

He suggested that Twitter was looking at ways to give people more room to express themselves without polluting the service. Mr Dorsey said that imposing some limits "inspires creativity and brevity and a sense of speed". He said it would "never lose that feeling". At the same time, he said Twitter wasn't "going to be shy about building more utility and power into Twitter for people". He said as long as it was consistent with what people wanted to do, they would explore it. Officially Twitter, which is based in San Francisco, has refused to comment on its plans.

Experts say the Twitter co-founder is hoping to keep long-time users happy at the same time as getting more cash from advertising with a bigger audience. The company hasn't made a profit since launching in 2006. In comparison Facebook has 1.5 billion users and made £579m between July and September last year. Jack Dorsey, who returned to the company last July, helped create Twitter in 2006. He imposed a 140-character limit on messages so the service would be easy to use on mobile phones that could only deal with 160 character texts at that time. Those limits disappeared after smartphones took off and allowed people to use other internet messaging services, making Twitter's restrictions look increasingly out of date.
 




happypig

Staring at the rude boys
May 23, 2009
8,181
Eastbourne
I like the 140 character limit, it forces brevity and creativity; if essays are allowed it will totally transform timelines.

A much better way would be to allow users to input a longer message of, say, 300 characters but only once a day.
 




Bozza

You can change this
Helpful Moderator
Jul 4, 2003
57,323
Back in Sussex
If it happens, and I believe it will, I suspect it won't lead to newsfeeds being elongated with mega-long posts requiring extensive scrolling to reach the following post, but longer posts will be truncated, requiring further action to access them.

Facebook did similar with notes: https://www.facebook.com/notes
 


beorhthelm

A. Virgo, Football Genius
Jul 21, 2003
36,029
I like the 140 character limit, it forces brevity and creativity; if essays are allowed it will totally transform timelines.

i believe its the reason for its success, much like SMS, for quick, simple communication. allowing long tweets would make it just the same as any other blog or forum, or even email.
 




Peteinblack

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Jun 3, 2004
4,147
Bath, Somerset.
So people in the street or the pub will spend even longer staring down at their phones, rather than looking where they are walking, or talking to their friends/family/partner sat just inches away from them :mad:
 


Greg Bobkin

Silver Seagull
May 22, 2012
16,074
I thought there was the option of doing this anyway. Isn't there an app, or something, called 'TwitLonger' or similar? I'm not a prolific tweeter, but I do like the fact that the messages are short - I thought that was its USP...

I'm in the 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' camp for this one.
 


Dec 29, 2011
8,205
Tag one or two people and you're already down to 120 characters. Make usernames and links not count towards the limit, and then up the limit to 200 characters. Allows more discussion per post but won't lead to essays.
 






BBassic

I changed this.
Jul 28, 2011
13,066
Tag one or two people and you're already down to 120 characters. Make usernames and links not count towards the limit, and then up the limit to 200 characters. Allows more discussion per post but won't lead to essays.

Definitely. Always bugged me that quoted names etc. count towards the limit.
 


If this puts an end to the BBC's irritating habit of bombarding the TV screen with inane tweets by footballers during MOTD, it can only be a good thing.

There can't be many professional footballers capable of stringing together a message with 10,000 characters, shirley?
 




Giraffe

VERY part time moderator
Helpful Moderator
NSC Patron
Aug 8, 2005
27,245
This would be madness unless it is done in a very controlled way, e.g you can do an intro in the normal size plus an extended message that doesn't appear on the twitter feed until you click into it.
 


Bladders

Twats everywhere
Jun 22, 2012
13,672
The Troubadour
If this puts an end to the BBC's irritating habit of bombarding the TV screen with inane tweets by footballers during MOTD, it can only be a good thing.

There can't be many professional footballers capable of stringing together a message with 10,000 characters, shirley?


Good point, and on SSN.

A whole section dedicated to player tweets all saying the same crap

''Great win today, 3 points was all that mattered''

''Well done to the lads , great effort. Big game next week''

''Great feeling to win #greatfeeling''

''Great win, great atmos'' #onto the next game''



AAAAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH :facepalm:
 


easynow

New member
Mar 17, 2013
2,039
jakarta
If this puts an end to the BBC's irritating habit of bombarding the TV screen with inane tweets by footballers during MOTD, it can only be a good thing.

There can't be many professional footballers capable of stringing together a message with 10,000 characters, shirley?

I always laugh when news channels quote tweets about current events from celebs or randoms. Who gives a crap? Reminds me of this video lol

 


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