Twitter considers ditching the limit

Associated Press

NEW YORK

Many Twitter users – and more importantly, the billions more who don’t use Twitter – feel constrained by the company’s somewhat archaic 140-

Whoops! That’s what happens when you hit the character limit imposed by Twitter. Is it time to ditch it as Twitter searches for ways to grow its stagnant user base?

The limit was created so tweets would fit in a single text message, back when people used Twitter that way. But most people now use Twitter through its mobile app, where there isn’t the same technical constraint.

And Twitter users already employ creative ways to get around it. They send out multipart tweets, or take screenshots of text typed elsewhere.

CEO Jack Dorsey, in such a screenshot that he tweeted in January, appeared amused by the fact that people – not to be constrained – are finding creative workarounds such as the text-block photos. Maybe it’s something Twitter could build on.

“[What] if that text ... was actually text?” he mused. “Text that could be searched. Text that could be highlighted. That’s more utility and power.”

This suggests that the company is at least thinking about creative ways to keep the spirit of the 140-character limit while giving people more freedom to share their thoughts and rants. But there’s history, nostalgia and the Twitter brand being inexorably tied to quick, short bursts of text. Twitter is still often described as a “short messaging service,” after all.

Dorsey called the limit a “beautiful constraint” that inspires creativity, brevity and a “sense of speed.”