Twitter Big UPDATE : Removing 140 character limit from Direct Messages
Twitter is getting serious about messaging today. Two months into the announcement that it would remove the 140-character limit from Direct Messages, Twitter today officially made the move in the hope of taking on popular instant messaging platforms like Facebook Messenger, Skype, iMessage and others.
Twitter first announced its intention to drop the 140 character limit in a blog post in June. Since the beginning of the summer, Twitter has been working on several enhancements to its service as it searches for a new full-time CEO to replace Dick Costolo. The company has been working on new ways to integrate news stories into its app by way of a new Project Lightning initiative. The company has also been seeding frequent software and over-the-air updates to its apps, including the recent addition of landscape support on the iPhone 6 Plus.
Twitter’s full blog post regarding the DM character limit change can be found below :
We’re eliminating the 140-character limit, to make Direct Messages even more powerful and fun.
If you’ve checked your Direct Messages today, you may have noticed that something’s missing: the limitation of 140 characters. You can now chat on (and on) in a single Direct Message, and likely still have some characters left over.
While Twitter is largely a public experience, Direct Messages let you have private conversations about the memes, news, movements, and events that unfold on Twitter. Each of the hundreds of millions of Tweets sent across Twitter every day is an opportunity for you to spark a conversation about what’s happening in your world. That’s why we’ve made a number of changes to Direct Messages over the last few months. Today’s change is another big step towards making the private side of Twitter even more powerful and fun.
You may be wondering what this means for the public side of Twitter. In a word, nothing. Tweets will continue to be the 140 characters they are today, rich with commentary as well as photos, videos, links, Vines, gifs, and emoji. So, start working on those sonnets.
We’ll begin rolling out this change today across our Android and iOS apps, on twitter.com, TweetDeck, and Twitter for Mac. It will continue to roll out worldwide over the next few weeks. If you can’t wait to try out longer Direct Messages, be sure you’re using the latest versions of our apps so you get the update right away. Sending and receiving Direct Messages via SMS will still be limited.
What about tweets ?
Nothing, as this change only affects Direct Messages and not the public side of Twitter. Your tweets will continue to be the 140 characters they are today until, of course, top dogs at Twitter decide it’s high time that limit went away as well.