With the trial of increasing the character limit from 140 to 280, Twitter believes this will allow social users to ‘express themselves’.
Twitter themselves have called it: “Giving you more characters to express yourself”. Here we discuss the impact of this:
Frequently, you will find yourself editing tweets down to make them fit within the character limit which can tend to cause issues in misinterpretation of the message. This is by having to remove a word containing an important meaning and more often than not, resulting in scrapping the tweet all together and deciding against posting. Could 280 allow for more accurate information being conveyed? … we think so.
Language barriers are another aspect of Twitter which differ universally. Users from China, Japan and Korea already have an advantage on Twitter with their tweets averaging at about 15 characters. This is due to the nature of their expression, processing phrases in less words than other languages such as English. Therefore, this character increase will make the limit equal for users globally.
Although this Twitter innovation will allow users to provide more information and extend the points they are making, could this damage the uniqueness of Twitter as a social channel? Chances are, the permanent fixture of this character expansion will lose Twitter its individual microblogging theme and USP as an international brand. However, by eliminating hashtags from the character intake, could this be a more successful idea to give users greater chance to express themselves? By using a creative turn of phrase, tweets can be transformed into an engaging and high reaching post which attracts a conversation. Every character really does count to be able to invent a refined message so does Twitter need to rethink their strategy to innovate AND hold onto their users.
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Recent news has revealed that users of the micro-blogging channel have had their wishes granted (according to Twitter) as the character limit has been increased by 140 to 280 characters per tweet. However, there is plenty of speculation and even more unhappy users who are unsatisfied with the platforms’ ‘attempt’ to actually improve its service with what its ‘Twitterer’s’ have asked for. Users have requested a feature which gives them the ability to edit their tweets after they have been posted, a characteristic already held by competitor Facebook. Twitter have not reacted to this service development plea but have instead increased the character limit. Is this a wise move?
Tell us what you think…