Twitter to lift 140-character limit [REPORT]

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Twitter presently has a 140-character limit, but the company is now working on a new product to allow users to share tweets exceeding that limit, says a report from Re/code, which cites people familiar with the company’s plans. Since day one, the 140-character limit has remained one of the trademark features for the micro-blogging firm.

Twitter to remove the limit?

What the new Twitter product will look like is not known for now, but sources say users will be able to tweet long-form content on the platform. Tweeting out blocks of text is possible for users at present with products like OneShot, but those are simply images of text and not actual text. The report further informs readers that besides long-form content, another topic company execs have been openly discussing is tweaking the way Twitter measures its 140-character limit. They are reportedly planning to remove items like links and user handles from the count.

Twitter has tinkered with the limit in several other ways in the past. In April, the micro-blogging firm added a new option called “retweet with comment” to give users more room to comment on the tweets they share. In June, the 140-character rule on private messages was also lifted.

Dorsey working like full-time CEO

Citing multiple sources, the report also says the expansion of the character limit has been a topic of discussion internally for years, and the topic surfaced again in recent months under the leadership of interim CEO Jack Dorsey while management was exploring new ways to grow the platform’s user base. Company outsiders who have been scrutinizing it for several years now always argued that it should be expanded.

Twitter is desperately seeking new ways to attract more users to the product. On his first earnings call as CEO, Dorsey openly criticized some of the most recent changes made to the product, saying Twitter needs to reach out more to the mainstream audience. Dorsey is clearly supporting big changes, a very bold stance on his part.

One current senior employee at Twitter said, “People have been very precious at Twitter about what Twitter can be and how much it can be evolved. Having Jack come in and say it’s okay makes all the difference in the world.”

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