Twitter has arguably done much to ensure the survival of the pithy comment, an endangered species of discourse threatened by long-winded politicians and assorted blathering idiots. Without a tweet’s 140-character limit, who knows how long the twits you follow could go on about the hashtag du jour? Your Twitter feed could be filled with yards and yards of inane drivel instead of short, simple, snappy jokes. Brevity is still the soul of wit, but its days on Twitter could be coming to an end.
According to Re/code and others, Twitter is considering extending the character limit for tweets to an astonishing, and frankly ridiculous, 10,000. Twitter won’t comment on the story, which suggests that it’s true and that nobody wants to spoil an official announcement. Re/code speculates that the company’s biggest challenge will be how to incorporate the change without ruining the feeling and general purpose of Twitter. “Making Tweets bigger by adding more content or bigger pictures has diminished user engagement in the past … If tweets take a long time to consume or take up more space on your screen, it’s likely that you’ll view (and engage with) fewer of them. So Twitter is trying to add more content without disrupting the way you currently scroll through your timeline.” But all is not lost for those of us who like things short and sweet. Be assured, gentle readers, that 2paragraphs.com isn’t about to become 20,000 paragraphs.com.
