#Twitter10K: Possibility of 10,000 Character Limit Creates Big Buzz
CEO Jack Dorsey was evasive in his response to rumors about the possibility of longer tweets.
By Lindsay Friedman •
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
According to a few little birds, Twitter has some big changes in store. Among them include the strong possibility that the number of characters in this paragraph would no longer be an issue if you were to tweet it.
Though the exact length isn't yet confirmed, as Twitter representatives stay quiet, reports say the new limit could be anywhere up to 10,000 words. Still, the feed would only allow 140 characters to appear with some type of indication that there's more to see so as to avoid a disruption in users' timelines, according to re/code.
Related: 5 Steps to Harnessing the Power of Twitter
The article also mentioned that the company is considering a few tweaks to its chronological feed and is still working to determine how it would handle potential spam problems.
As chatter about the change continues, the company's stock hit an all-time low ($21.89). However, it's not exactly clear whether its stock performance was directly related to the controversy, since Twitter's ongoing battle to attract new users while simultaneously maintaining its existing audience surges on.
In response, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey took to the platform to create his own tweetstorm (which, he wrote, aren't going away any time soon). His lengthy explanation was posted as a screenshot. Without getting too specific about any impending changes, Dorsey wrote the company noticed users doing the same with large bodies of text.
"Instead, what if that text … was actually text?," he wrote. "Text that could be searched. Text that could be highlighted. That's more utility and power."
— Jack (@jack) January 5, 2016Despite the fact that Dorsey's tweet garnered more than 4,000 retweets and likes, debate surrounds the issue in an effort to determine if the move would be a good one for the company and its users.
Not a fan of #Twitter10k. The 140 character limit is what makes Twitter...Twitter. It also challenges creativity on the platform.
— Jeffrey Wisenbaugh (@KoolJeffrey) January 6, 2016#Twitter10k. If someone can't articulate their thoughts in 140 characters, it's probably not worth reading.
— Stephen Murdoch (@canadianprguy) January 6, 2016Why don't people want the character limit to increase? I think it's awesome. #Twitter10k
— Danny Gonzalez (@DannyGoonzalez) January 6, 2016Along with a potential increase in character count, the social-media outlet has rolled out a number of new features in an effort to jumpstart growth.
For example, moments, or "Project Lightning," had Twitter team with a number of large publications such as The New York Times and Buzzfeed and conjoins related tweets based on topics or events in a tab located at the bottom of the app. But Project Lightning hasn't yet proved to be striking as the developers hoped, according to re/code.
Flop or not, Dorsey remains optimistic about Twitter's upcoming endeavors.
"We're not going to be shy about building more utility and power into Twitter for people," he wrote in the post. "As long as it's consistent with what people want to do, we're going to explore it."
