The 280 character Tweet limit that Twitter began testing for a small group of users back in September is now ready for almost everyone. Twitter announced today that “all languages where cramming was an issue” will see the doubling of the character limit from 140 to 280 characters.
Twitter said in a blog post that during testing, most people with the 280 character limit didn’t Tweet all that much with the full 280 characters. Instead, most Tweets were under 140 characters, but having the higher limit did allow users to Tweet more often when they had something longer to say. And since that was the goal of the limit change, Twitter is satisfied and wants us all to have such freedom.
Those who Tweet in Japanese, Korean, and Chinese will keep the 140 character limit, since cramming all that needs to be said into a single Tweet isn’t an issue for them. The rest of us, well, we’re getting 280 whether we like it or not.