Yesterday night, Twitter announced an update: its 140 character limit had been reviewed. Henceforth, Twitter users can type up to 280 characters.
https://twitter.com/Twitter/status/912783930431905797
Twitter was quite ecstatic about this new update, but the best users of the app could summon was “oh, joy”. Initial reactions were negative all the way.
https://twitter.com/poniewozik/status/912787813069934592
Someone even said….
Nobody is going to read your stupid 280-character tweets
— Big Fish Gee 🦈 (@GbemmyG) September 27, 2017
(Wow. Strong feelings there.)
Until this – the first of its kind 280 character tweet, posted by co-founder of Twitter himself, Jack Dorsey.
This is a small change, but a big move for us. 140 was an arbitrary choice based on the 160 character SMS limit. Proud of how thoughtful the team has been in solving a real problem people have when trying to tweet. And at the same time maintaining our brevity, speed, and essence! https://t.co/TuHj51MsTu
— jack (@jack) September 26, 2017
Swell, right? Guess again.
A copy editor put his skills to good use and slashed the 280 character tweet down to 179.
https://twitter.com/brianrbarone/status/912788388150960130
Twitter users couldn’t be more pleased:
https://twitter.com/bajshagirl/status/912808549918457856
@KristinNHiggs Closest thing to that edit button we'll get for a while…
— Lee Gibson (@leegibsonmusic) September 27, 2017
That’s perfect lol
— 🐾 Kristin Higgs (@OkieDogTrainer) September 27, 2017
Strunk and White would be proud. #omitneedlesswords
— Erika Luckert (@ErikaLuckert) September 27, 2017
The power of #editing to get to the core strength of a written thought #140isfinethankyou @jack #edittweet more useful
— dlw2 (@drdlwillis11) September 27, 2017
https://twitter.com/AnnaDarlin/status/912796629761216513
280 is also a plain arbitrary number. what is the next step? 1000 characters? endless characters?
— leti.exe (@letiverso) September 27, 2017
https://twitter.com/SupraBo_Here/status/912912891392724992
@fanzilferoz twitter singlehandedly taught a verbose girl how to be concise and that is a very important skill in writing/speech/thinking
— myra (@myrafaroooqui) September 27, 2017
But then, there’s this:
https://twitter.com/ChrisAlbes/status/912801885979111426
And a request
https://twitter.com/EC_Kosters/status/912856609457614848
She did one better
https://twitter.com/caitlin__kelly/status/912795950476857344
Plus we can’t help but wonder
What's trump going to do now with 280 words to spare. It's even more dangerous
— Jellybaby (@JYawer) September 27, 2017
Back to the matter
oh yeah! 👍💯 pic.twitter.com/Y90aQcu1Me
— 🌐Jose.Rey. (@josereyalo) September 27, 2017
Stay 140, people. ?
