Twitter takes the jump from 140 to 280 characters

“This is a small change, but a big move for us.” – Jack Dorsey’s moon landing moment, except no one seems particularly excited. In announcing the new 280-character limit for Twitter, all he seems to have done is increase debate about the issue (which is mostly being done in 140 characters or less) and annoy a lot of loyal users.

From an advertisers perspective, this could be a positive change which could help see better ROI on a platform which has been too expensive to make much sense for certain clients in recent years. Some offers and products just require that bit more detail, but couldn’t they first allow links to be posted without losing available characters (like with images)? Personally, I’ve never felt a huge need a bunch of extra characters, but 20 or so would definitely be a bonus in some instances.

Beyond that, surely there’s a number of ongoing issues which needed addressing first anyhow? Harassment and bots are just two major issues which have been repeatedly discussed for years now, yet are still rife on the platform. When it comes to functionality, why is it that we still can’t edit a tweet? Think of all the people who think Cologne is Colon. We should give these people a chance to save themselves before they end up all over Buzzfeed, right? And don’t even get me started on the need for better analytics…

Perhaps all Twitter want us to know is that they’re trying new things, but we’d prefer the glaring issues fixed first. With the introduction of this increased limit, we can expect to see incredibly text-heavy feeds without little (if any) extra value. Where Facebook continues to try and create a more visually appealing and easy-to-digest feed for its users, Twitter looks to be heading the other way. Good move, or bad? Time will tell.