Twitter Re-Tweets from 140 Characters

If you want to share more this year, the Twitter universe is making it easier. Last fall, the social media network announced it was retreating from its 140-character limit and rolling out a change to 280 characters to the majority of its 330 million-plus users worldwide.

Twitter was developed in 2006 as an alternative to text messaging; individuals subscribed to get and send updates in real time. Interestingly, Globe & Mail reporter André Picard found a dictionary definition of “twitter” as meaning “a short burst of inconsequential information.” In fact, users loved it for this very reason. As its popularity grew, it became an opportunity for people to share their views, and to “follow” friends and celebrity Twitter users. Celebs boasted followers in the millions—pop music icon Katy Perry had 105 million followers in November 2017—but many users found the 140-character limit restrictive.

The company stated: “We are making this change after listening and observing a problem our global community was having—it wasn’t easy enough to tweet …” Based on testing, it expects an enthusiastic response from Twitter users and, almost inevitably, more subscribers.