In September and October, Twitter was in the spotlight for their consideration to expand a tweet’s 140 character count, which has been a trademark feature since day one. The company is continuing to look for new ways to grow their user base.
In the proposed plan, Twitter will build a new product to implement longer tweets, but it is unknown how much they would extend the character count by. Long-form publishing is found on Facebook & LinkedIn, both of which have been extremely successful in the recent years. So, Twitter believes that they can attract more users if they adjust this feature.
Twitter has already made some changes over the past few months. In June, they lifted the 140 character count for private messages, allowing the user to have unrestricted personal conversations. They also started the poll feature, allowing users to choose from two options and share their opinion. “Favorites” and “stars” have changed to “likes” and “hearts” with the intent to make Twitter easier and more rewarding for users. And recently, they added the moments section for all users to view real time updates about the biggest and latest news around the globe.
The 140 character count is what has differentiated Twitter from every other social media platform. People are in need of speed, convenience and simplicity, so why change? There hasn’t been an update since September on this issue, but you never know what tomorrow may bring.
As a twitter user, I think that Twitter has always been a quick and short way to get my thoughts out there, so with this possible change, it defeats the purpose. Facebook is the social media platform for longer, more in depth posts. Even though it could increase the user base, I think current users won’t be happy with the changes. Also, Twitter got a lot of backlash from changing “favorites” to “likes” and “stars” to “hearts,” so I think they’ll receive just as much, if not more for changing the whole point of Twitter. So, for those reasons, I don’t think this is the best idea for the user. What do you think?