280-Character Tweets Are Now Available to Everyone
After a short test, Twitter is now officially sending everyone a 280-character tweet as of today. You should be able to tweet twice as many starting today using both Twitter’s website and its mobile app.
Twitter originally tested this feature with a small group of users this September. During the trial, the company wanted to see how the longer tweet length affects how and when people tweet. In a blog post announcing the update , Product Manager Alisa Rosen commented that the goal was to give people more characters to tweet with while maintaining the “speed and conciseness that makes Twitter, Twitter.”
After examining the data, it was found that even people who had the 280 character limit were most likely to tweet less than 140 characters. The longer length was only used when needed and, according to Twitter, made people tweet easier and more often.
“Only 5% of the tweets sent were longer than 140 characters and only 2% were longer than 190 characters. As a result, your experience of reading the timeline should not change significantly, you will still see about the same number of tweets on your timeline, ”Rosen said in her post.
If you want to try out the new 280 character limit, you should be able to now on the Twitter website and mobile app. If for some reason you don’t, try updating your site or app. This feature should be available soon.
Tweets in Japanese, Korean, and Chinese will continue to be limited to 140 characters, as Twitter says “cramming these languages is not a problem.”