Though we’ve already asked, “How much would you pay for Twitter?“, Adam Covati (@covati) is stirring the pot with a specific feature suggestion brought up by @mike9r that he feels people may get excited about.
Expanded Character Counts
Mike’s suggestion for a paid feature of Twitter is to open up the ability for that user to post up to 240 characters in a tweet instead of the normal 140. I’ve always been in favor of a pro-version of Twitter that would allow for more functionality, but hadn’t thought about an expanded character count as one of those features.
The more I think about it, the more I actually like that idea. While Twitter has been built around the idea of 140 characters, it is frustrating when you’ve got to go back and edit a few words down just to make the character cutoff.
The Problem With More
Adam was quick to point out several reasons in his post why more characters could cause problems.
- Part of the value in twitter is that it’s quick.
- [it] could break many twitter clients.
The problem I see is that if we pay and start to use 240 characters, what happens when that isn’t enough space? Do they extend it further? Do they uncork the limit on characters?
Why Have Limits At All?
There are several other microblogging platforms that don’t implement character limits, though they still seem to operate in short bites (for the most part). There are some exceptions, but most people agree that microblogging is for short style updates, so that’s what the majority are.
If people are worried about scrolling through their timeline and having to deal with lengthy posts, I’ve got an idea:
Twitter could truncate all tweets in a timeline at 140 characters and then include a small plus sign (+) that would expand the tweet into it’s full glory.
TwitWall uses a variation on this idea by posting up to 140ish characters on Twitter and linking to the rest of the message on TwitWall, but the main issue is that it takes you outside of Twitter. Implementing an idea as I suggested to keep everything contained within Twitter’s own walls.
Would you pay for more characters on Twitter? Some feel it goes against the very fiber that Twitter is built upon, but sometimes those 140 characters just aren’t enough.
Let us know what you think in the comments or participate in our twtpoll.
I think longer tweets would make Twitter less usable. Having a tough constraint like 140 chars is good, it really makes you work hard at expressing yourself concisely. Anyway, no matter how long you make tweets, there will always be something that you just can't fit in, and have to spin out to a blog or something like TwitWall. So my vote is to stick with 140.
Reply · PermalinkStrangely enough I do have a good number of friends who are using Twitter by SMS only. That and I love the challenge of communicating in the limited space so I say keep the limit.
BTW having a tweet that is exactly 140 characters long is personally extremely rewarding.
Reply · PermalinkGlad to hear we got you thinking too. That Mike's got some good ideas. We'll have to see if the new director of Biz Dev over at Twitter HQ likes the idea or not.
@covati
Reply · PermalinkThere are a lot of features on Twitter that I'd pay for (like analytics) but this is definitely not one of them :-) I could see this feature bundled into a "pro" version but definitely not paid for on its own.
I don't think would would make Twitter less usable, but when you think about the API and all the apps that wrap it - breaking a standard like that would cause huge ripple effects.
Reply · PermalinkSpeaking strictly from a technical standpoint, modifying the character limit wouldn't have a huge impact on how clients post updates since they're accepted/rejected at the API level, not the application level. If you send an update that's too long, Twitter will simply reject it. The real problem lies in the fact that clients would have to distinguish how many characters the user has, though this could also be accomplished easily through the API (there's already a 'protected' tag in the user profile XML). If that data were returned when authenticating, it'd be easy enough for clients to determine the character limit. The tricky part would be displaying updates since it seems a bunch of clients have set heights/widths for each update.
We're all inconvenienced by the character limit at one time or another, but remember that that's why Twitter is what it is. Having a limit encourages users to cut the nonsense and say only what they need to say. Also keep in mind that something like 3% of tweets are sent via SMS (source) so there are limits there too.
Reply · PermalinkI say keep it at 140. But come up with a Pro version that is cheaper than some services like Flickr Pro accounts, Pro account would give analytics like Andy mentions. And maybe throw in a cool t-shirt or wrist band. I hear wrist bands are making a huge comeback thanks to @garyvee. Anyway, trying to monetize off opening up the amount of characters wouldnt be the way to go IMO.
Reply · PermalinkFrom my perspective it's not about trying to monetize based solely on an expanded character version, but more along the lines of establishing a pro-version period (plus whether expanded character counts matter to people).
If Twitter were to launch a paid pro-version, there would need to be several functions available, including analytics. The reason I brought up character limits is because some platforms have done away with them entirely, while others are still holding hard and fast.
I'd be open to an expanded character limit if they made it available, but it would have to blend in easily (something similar to what I described in my post above) for it to work.
Reply · PermalinkThinking about the footprint of tweet and how much that would increase given a character increase it is even a bigger NO for me. The problem with other platforms without limits is they are hard to scan and read in a smaller screen footprint such as mobile and most apps. IMO, reading the posts will seem like a bigger distraction from my work because there is more to process and honestly I'm concerned by little things like scrolling through the stream.
Expanding the character limit sounds like a good idea but for readability I have to say no. I was active on Pownce and still am on Tumblr but I visit these microblogs daily. Twitter I feel comfortable keeping open nearly all day long because even with following more peeps on twitter it doesn't feel nearly as heavy as other microblogs.
Reply · PermalinkWhen I said "longer tweets would make Twitter less usable", I was thinking of all the stuff Rob Jensen said.
Reply · PermalinkIf you'd like 240 characters for free (and now), try BigTweet http://bigtweet.com/
BigTweet provides 2 modes - a classic 140 char post and an expanded 240 character selection that will break a large post into two nicely formatted, sequential tweets.
Even if you want to stay with the 140 character mode, BigTweet will allow you to post from any web page, shorten URLs, insert special Unicode characters, and automatically capture the title, page link and any highlighted text.
Installs quickly as a bookmarklet on all the major browsers.
- Scott
Reply · PermalinkI think increasing the limit to 240 would be a huge mistake, not on Twitter's part but on the part of the account-holders who decide to make use of it. I value Twitter because it forces people to limit their thoughts to 140 characters. There are certain people and organizations that I follow that, if they started sending me 240 character messages, I would be heavily inclined to just stop following.
Reply · PermalinkIs it really those 140 characters that draw you to Twitter, or the simple fact that there is a limit and you can't beyond that?
I agree that the short format of tweets is very important, but I'm not sure if the actual character limit is something that MUST be enforced to be indicative of microblogging.
Reply · PermalinkOh my god, No!
More characters would be the first step on a slippery slope. Check out my post about why Twitter won't rot... It would rot if this happened.
Twitter is Micro-Blogging.... get it....? MICRO When people start posting essays on there then it dies.
Reply · PermalinkI think twitter without character limits is called "email." Ever heard of that?
Reply · Permalink