Rumours abound that Twitter will be introducing a new 10,000 character option sometime at the end of this quarter, a move that will effectively change Twitter’s most fundamental feature. Nadia Barmada, Content Director, Found, argues why brevity is Twitter’s strongest selling point.
While not yet confirmed, it is believed that the look and feel will remain the same, i.e the 140 character limit will remain in your timeline, with a call to action to reveal more content. However, behind that summary will be a much bigger read!
So does anyone really want to wade through 10,000 characters, or the equivalent of about 1800 words, on Twitter? The appeal of the microblogging site is in the unique nature of the content, and often humour-filled and masterly concise analysis that sometime results from this feature.
As Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey described, the 140 character limit:
“It’s become a beautiful constraint. It inspires creativity and brevity. And a sense of speed.”
It seems like a move designed to compete with Facebook instant articles and other blogging platforms like Medium and Tumblr. But for me, the appeal of Twitter lies in the ability to curate, quickly scan and discover interesting content elsewhere. It’s the layer over the rest of the internet that I use as a first point of call to discover breaking news, follow conversations and occasionally complain about bad service.
It’s the one-stop stream that sends me off to interesting discoveries (and occasional list of cute puppies). For me, it’s the one unique feature that sets it apart from the numerous other sites filled with not always useful, and often unnecessarily long content and has kept me as a regular Twitter user since 2007.
I’m more excited about the Twitter Moments feature and the idea of discovering threads of a conversation around a story or unfolding situation. The instantaneous nature and global reach of Twitter lends itself perfectly to this.
So instead of focusing on filling up the internet with more characters it doesn’t need, Twitter should build on what it does best – brevity and immediacy.
By Nadia Barmada
Content Director
Found