Social media mogul Twitter for the first since its conception 11 years ago has finally decided to increase the character count in its messaging service.
The company after conducting an internal survey has found that more than nine percent of English tweets reach the 140 character limit, while the Chinese, Japanese and Korean tweets, most of the time never hit the maximum limit.
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For instance Japanese use just 15 characters on an average to express their feelings on Twitter, as they can convey double the amount of information in one character compared to other languages such as English, Spanish, Portuguese, or French.
"Our research shows us that the character limit is a major cause of frustration for people Tweeting in English, but it is not for those Tweeting in Japanese. Also, in all markets, when people don't have to cram their thoughts into 140 characters and actually have some to spare, we see more people Tweeting – which is awesome!," Aliza Rosen, product manager, Twitter, said in a statement.
It has concluded that some languages, including English, need more words (characters) to express one's feeling. So, the company has decided to double the existing 140 character count to 280 in coming days.
Twitter has already commenced trials on the new feature with a small group of people and if things go as planned, it will release a new update to expand the character limit to 280 in coming months.
With this initiative, Twitter hopes to attract more fans and increase active users on par with rivals like Facebook and Instagram.
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