Some think Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR)’s 140-character limit is restricting the company’s progress. But the limit was what set the social media company apart from the competition and contributed to its immense success.
Twitter’s co-founder Jack Dorsey had stated that the 140 characters restriction was borrowed. Basic phones permitted 160 characters for their “short message service”. Hence, Twitter removed 20 characters for the user name and left 140 for the content. Short messages were also perceived as more comfortable to new users who might be overwhelmed at having to come up with lengthier posts.
Twitter now lacks a permanent CEO, has lower growth than it’s investors expected, and the share value is below the initial public offering amount.
Since the organization’s inception itself some have urged it to drop the 140-character limit. Some folk are against any limit completely while some have suggested some arbitrary limits.
Similar to other social media platforms, Twitter’s future is based on the increase and loyalty of its members. They sell access to the public who also generate vast amounts of useful data which Twitter utilizes.
The logic is straightforward – the more folk that utilize the platform, the more profits the social media platforms will have which includes Twitter too. Some hold the view that getting rid of the 140-character restriction is long overdue. They are also of the opinion that the length limit is blocking Twitter’s progress. Additionally more users are drawn to rival Facebook where they have the freedom to post stuff that are as long as they wish.
Nowadays the 140-character limited can be got around by many techniques. It can be done by “tweetstorms” that are a series of connected and numbered tweets. Some utilize screenshots of several pages of text. Interestingly Twitter itself has come up with tactics to get around the 140-character limit. For this, it uses expanded tweets, which when clicked on show an excerpt of a news story or a picture or video.
The limit is fine when it comes to the English language. However, the limit can be too big or too small when it comes to other languages. Also, it’s difficult for users to express themselves properly when there is a limit in place.
Sources: fortune, businessinsider
