Twitter lives up to its promise to drop 140-character limit

Started last Wednesday, Twitter is rolling out the new update across all its platforms (iOS, Android, and web-based applications). "If you've checked your Direct Messages today, you may have noticed that something's missing: The limitation of 140 characters. You can now chat on (and on) in a single Direct Message, and likely still have some characters left over," Twitter announced in a blog post this last Wednesday.

This comes as another step taken by Twitter management to make the platform relevant and more responsive to its users' needs. Since the company went public, its investors are demanding more changes and rapid improvements to attract new users and to make the platform more appealing to businesses, The Arab News reports. "While Twitter is largely a public experience, Direct Messages let you have private conversations about the memes, news, movements, and events that unfold on Twitter. Each of the hundreds of millions of tweets sent across Twitter every day is an opportunity for you to spark a conversation about what's happening in your world," said the blog post. The first time Twitter brought this idea to light was the very day its former CEO, Dick Costolo, announced that he was stepping down from his post back in June. Now with group messaging, which came to light back in April, and limitless direct messages (not totally limitless, they announced in June that the limit would be 10,000 characters, but who has the time to write such a DM, let alone read it!) Twitter is trying to catch up to speed in the race of private messaging and chat applications because Facebook and WhatsApp are dominating the market and reportedly having larger users bases than Twitter, according to Mashable. Having said that, I am not sure Twitter would be able to convert veteran users of such applications to go and try Twitter. Still, what is making such applications more popular is the ease of use in comparison to Twitter. It is a good move, nonetheless, to be able to engage in a discussion with someone about a topic you are both passionate about without worrying or keeping an eye on the limit counter, but it would still be harder to imagine it as a replacement to WhatsApp conversations and family and friends groups. At least here in the Kingdom, where WhatsApp is so popular and almost a part of any active smart phone in the country, I do not think this feature would attract or be considered appealing to a lot of users. For Twitter, it is a change in the image we all have about the platform, the 140-character limit is one of its main features that descend to mind whenever the tiny blue bird comes across our eyes, now we have to wait and see how such move would impact its users and whether they will be impressed by it. Personally, I won't bet a lot of money on this feature as the winning horse that would attract a lot of new users.