Long known for their clear and concise form of messaging, Tweets are about to get super longer thanks to the new 280-character limit feature currently being tested by Twitter. The company notes that the new limit is currently available to a small few and not available in Japanese, Chinese and Korean.
We want every person around the world to easily express themselves on Twitter, so we’re doing something new: we’re going to try out a longer limit, 280 characters, in languages impacted by cramming (which is all except Japanese, Chinese, and Korean), Twitter explained in a Blog Post.
According to Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, the 140-character limit was chosen in the past due to the 160-character limit on SMS text messaging. The company reserved 20 characters for unique user address and the remaining 140-character for tweets.
Now that text messages are unlimited, Twitter is looking to double the current limit to 280. While we don’t have the 280-character limit feature yet, you can find us on twitter: @tgfnews.
This is a small change, but a big move for us. 140 was an arbitrary choice based on the 160 character SMS limit. Proud of how thoughtful the team has been in solving a real problem people have when trying to tweet. And at the same time maintaining our brevity, speed, and essence! https://t.co/TuHj51MsTu
— jack (@jack) September 26, 2017
https://twitter.com/Twitter/status/912783930431905797