Twitter Removes 140-Character Limit on Direct Messages

On August 12, Twitter's official blog announced the removal of the 140-character limit from its Direct Message section. 'While Twitter is a collective experience, Direct Messages allow you to have private conversations about news, movements, and events being discussed on Twitter. Each of the hundreds of millions of tweets published daily allows you to discuss happenings in your world. For this reason, we have made changes to Direct Messages over the past few months. This change is a significant step in making Twitter's private section stronger and more enjoyable.' However, the removal of the character limit from 140 does not mean it is unlimited; the character limit for a private message on Twitter has been changed to 10,000 characters. In contrast, the character limit for a private message on Facebook is 20,000 characters. Last January, Twitter added the ability to send group messages to its Direct Message section. It also allowed individuals to send private messages to any other user, even if they are not followers. These major changes in Twitter seem to be aimed at addressing its main problem of attracting a broader audience in the social media arena. Although Twitter has over 300 million active users per month, this is only about one-fifth of Facebook's 1.5 billion users. Finding more users means more advertising revenue and, consequently, satisfaction for Twitter's investors and shareholders in the stock market. Other chat services like WhatsApp, Viber, or Apple's iMessage are also serious competitors for Twitter. However, not all Twitter users are happy with these changes. Drew Olanoff, a writer for TechCrunch, states that what made Twitter unique and different from other social services was its character limitation. He questions whether we should expect a separate application for private messages on Twitter, similar to Facebook's Messenger app.