Twitter appears as if it is ready to loosen a restriction that goes back a decade on the length of its messages in an attempt to make the service appeal to a broader audience accustomed to the freedom that is offered by social media giant Facebook as well as other forums.
Jack Dorsey a co-founder and current CEO telegraphed the intentions of Twitter in a Tuesday tweet he posted after the Re/Code tech news site reported that Twitter was exploring the increase of its limits on texting from just 140 character up to as high as 10,000.
Dorsey did not address directly the report by Re/Code that cited an unnamed group of people, but made it very clear that Tweeter is not tied to just the limit of 140 characters.
If Twitter allows its tweets to span as many as 10,000 characters, it would create a dissertation of approximately 1,700 words.
In the message he posted, Dorsey wrote that the company has noticed already that many of its close to 300 million users have already been including screenshots that included lengthy texts in the tweets.
He said that Twitter was examining ways in which people could have more room to be able to fully express themselves but not pollute the service with so many gasbags.
Dorsey pledged that imposing restraint helps to inspire brevity and creatively and a sense of speed. We he wrote, will never loss that feeling.
However, in the same post Dorsey said Twitter was not being shy about building more power and utility into Twitter for users. As long as it stays consistent with want is wanted by the people we will look into it.
Analysts are saying that Dorsey is likely trying to avoid any backlash amongst the long time users of Twitter who consider the twitting limit of 140 characters to be sacred.
However, he also has to respond to a growing number of shareholders discontent with lack of advertising revenue.
Additional revenue could help to eventually produce a profit for Twitter for just the first time in its existence.
