DOUBLED: Twitter Tests 280 Characters Limit

Recode reports:



Twitter’s iconic 140-character limit for tweets may be on the way out. In the hope that it will encourage more people to post, Twitter is doubling the number of characters that some users get for a tweet. The test means that a small group of Twitter users will now get 280 characters per tweet instead of the traditional 140 characters.

Twitter’s character limit is a holdover from the app’s early days when tweets were sent as texts, which were limited to 160 characters. It has since become one of the product’s most defining characteristics. “When people don’t have to cram their thoughts into 140 characters and actually have some to spare, we see more people Tweeting,” the company wrote.