Twitter Inc to let some break 140-character limit in tweet test

Bloomberg

Twitter Inc., struggling to attract new users, will lift its 140-character limit on tweets in an experiment with a small group that may expand to the entire social media platform. The test will let users send tweets with as many as 280 characters. Lengthening the character limit may result in more engaging conversation on the platform, helping its bid to turn itself into a destination for live events and discussion. It includes all languages except Japanese, Korean and Chinese. Twitter said those Asian languages can convey about double the amount of information in one character compared with many other languages.
“We want every person around the world to easily express themselves on Twitter,” Aliza Rosen, company product manager, and Ikuhiro Ihara, senior software engineer, said in a blog post. “When people don’t have to cram their thoughts into 140 characters and actually have some time to spare, we see more people tweeting.”
Character limit is a source of frustration for people tweeting in English, but not, for example, in Japanese, Twitter said. The company said its research shows that 9 percent of all tweets in English hit 140 characters, while only 0.4 percent in Japanese reach the maximum. Twitter has been struggling to invigorate user growth and advertising revenue while investors are questioning whether the San Francisco-based company can find a long-term growth path.
Twitter reported 328 million active monthly users in the second quarter, unchanged from the previous period. Shares have declined 15 percent in the two months since then, closing at $16.59 in New York.
The change may help drive engagement for the social media company, said Richard Greenfield, an analyst at BTIG.
Twitter has already started to relax its 140-character limit. The company said a year ago that additions like photos or videos no longer counted towards the limit.