![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com\/2017\/09\/twitter-characters.png?w=680&h=562\")
<\/p>\nTwitter\u2019s expansion to 280 characters is rolling out publicly today to all users in supported languages, including English. The company had first\u00a0announced\u00a0the controversial plan to move beyond its traditional 140 characters back in September, noting at the time how a longer character count allowed users to express more of their thoughts without running out of room to tweet.<\/p>\n
The expansion was initially available to a select group of Twitter users as a trial.<\/p>\n
At the time of its\u00a0original announcement,\u00a0the company cited data backing up its decision that referenced how the character constraints impacted users differently, depending on their language.<\/p>\n
Twitter said that those who tweeted in languages like\u00a0Japanese, Korean and Chinese were able to express around double the amount of information in a single character, compared with users who spoke\u00a0English, Spanish, Portuguese or French, for example.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Because of this, Twitter decided the expansion to 280 characters would only roll out to those languages affected by \u201ccramming\u201d \u2013 meaning everything but\u00a0Japanese, Chinese and Korean \u2013 during the test period.<\/p>\n
The #280 Controversy\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The decision was met with a fair amount of controversy, given that one of Twitter\u2019s defining characteristics is the brevity of users\u2019 posts.<\/p>\n Many argued that the increase to 280 characters\u00a0would make Twitter less readable, as longer tweets filled their timelines.<\/p>\n Others\u00a0suggested\u00a0that Twitter\u2019s focus on a feature no one really asked for was diverting its attention from more critical problems \u2013 like the rampant\u00a0abuse, harassment and bullying it\u2019s become known for unfortunately.<\/p>\n And still more argued that the expansion doesn\u2019t\u00a0really<\/em>\u00a0mean people will be able to better express themselves \u2013 they\u2019ll just say the same thing, but use more words to do so.<\/p>\n One particularly funny tweet on that subject even went viral.<\/p>\n A redlined and edited version of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey\u2019s 280-character tweet demonstrated how it was possible to shrink the tweet\u2019s word count down without losing its meaning.<\/p>\n 139 characters\u00a0pic.twitter.com\/WkfdXL8oLh<\/p>\n \u2014 Caitlin Kelly (@caitlin__kelly)\u00a0September 26, 2017<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n Twitter\u2019s user base is somewhat split on whether the change would ruin Twitter. Tech media \u2013 outside of a\u00a0couple\u00a0level-headed\u00a0responses\u00a0\u2013 seemed to be opposed to the change.<\/p>\n However, the media \u2013 a group of largely power users lamenting the loss of an information-dense timeline \u2013 may not represent Twitter\u2019s larger user base, some of whom have been\u00a0begging\u00a0for the feature since September.<\/p>\n In addition,\u00a0one poll from last month found\u00a0more Americans were in favor of the expansion than opposed to it, and the majority had no opinion.<\/p>\n However,\u00a0Crimson Hexagon\u00a0extracted sentiment data from 2.7 million tweets from Sept. 25 through Nov. 6 and found that negative sentiment is more prominent than positive (63 percent vs. 37 percent).<\/p>\n But it also noted negative sentiment \u2013 and discussion in general \u2013 has decreased since September.<\/p>\n Twitter\u2019s Data on #280 Usage\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n In today\u2019s\u00a0blog post\u00a0about the public launch of 280 characters, Twitter aims to assuage people\u2019s fears that their timelines will fill with expanded tweets.<\/p>\n The company said that during the trial period, people continued to tweet below 140 characters most of the time \u2013 after the novelty of being able to use more characters wore off. Specifically, Twitter found that only 5 percent of tweets were sent out with more than 140 characters and of those, only 2 percent were over 190 characters.<\/p>\n It also said that many of the goofy things people did once they gained the ability to tweet more \u2013 like\u00a0writing only a few characters per line\u00a0to make extra-large tweets \u2013 were only a temporary effect. (Though it expects many people will do this again with the public launch.)<\/p>\n Twitter added that only 1 percent of tweets hit the character limit after the expansion to 280, compared with 9 percent of tweets, historically speaking.<\/p>\n Notably, Twitter claims that those who had more room to tweet received more likes, retweets and @mentions, gained more followers, and spent more time on Twitter. However, it didn\u2019t quantify these findings with hard data.<\/p>\n Its sample size was likely small, though. Twitter tells us that only a \u201csingle digit percentage\u201d of its user base had access to 280 characters during the test period. (Twitter today has\u00a0330 million monthly users, as of its Q3 2017 earnings.)<\/p>\n At the end of the day, it\u2019s this engagement data that\u2019s driving Twitter\u2019s decision here. The company\u00a0believes\u00a0that the key to growing its user base is making the service easier for newcomers. Reducing roadblocks \u2013 like the inability to finish a thought \u2013 could help with that. (Arguably, creating a non-toxic community where online\u00a0abuse\u00a0is seriously addressed would be\u00a0more<\/em>\u00a0helpful.)<\/p>\n The rollout of 280 to all supported languages should complete in a few hours after today\u2019s announcement at 1 PM PT, we\u2019re told.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n Source: Techcrunch.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Twitter\u2019s expansion to 280 characters is rolling out publicly today to all users in supported languages, including English. The company had first\u00a0announced\u00a0the controversial plan to move beyond its traditional 140 characters back in September, noting at the time how a longer character count allowed users to express more of their thoughts without running out of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":308413,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[106],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n<\/div>\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com\/2017\/11\/final-cramming-graph.png?w=680&h=427\")
<\/p>\n