The joy of 140!

The announcement from Twitter that they are increasing the character limit for most users from 140 to 280 is disappointing for many people, causing lots of discussion on the platform. To me the real joy of Twitter is the brevity – it works two ways, it gives the chance to scan a lot of information very quickly and also challenges the writer to be concise in getting a message across. Those two elements will be lost if normal use expands to 280 characters.

Twitter have explained in their blog why they have adopted the 280 character limit, I hope they are right that people won’t use it regularly. If they do, I suspect I will use the platform a lot less. In a world where people are time pressed and looking for quick information the 140 characters has provided the brevity needed, with many ways to overcome it if required. It seems a shame to lose that.

What do you think?