Twitterati divided on 280 character limit

A month after Twitter doubled its 140-character restriction for people to express more in a tweet, users were divided on the new 280-character limit with only 38 per cent approving the change, a new survey has found.

According to the survey by London-based market research company YouGov, four in 10 said they liked it more now that tweets could be 280 characters long, while around a third (32 per cent) said they preferred it when tweets could only be 140 characters long.

The remaining 30 per cent were undecided on the change.

The 140-character limit was around since 2006 and became part of Twitter's personality. The new 280-character limit was made available virtually for all users -- including for those who tweet in Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi and Tamil.

In September, Twitter launched a test with a select group of users that expanded the 140-character limit.

"Our goal was to make this possible while ensuring we keep the speed and brevity that makes Twitter, Twitter," the micro-blogging website had said at that time.

During the first few days of the test, many people tweeted the full 280-limit because it was new and novel but soon after, the behaviour normalised.

Only five per cent of tweets sent were longer than 140 characters and only two per cent were over 190 characters, Twitter had found.

YouGov also found similar trend. About half (45 per cent) preferred 140 character Twitter, while 42 per cent like 280 character Twitter more (13 per cent did not have an opinion).

--IANS

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