A month after Twitter[1] doubled its 140-character restriction for people to express more in a tweet, users were divided on the new 280-character limit with only 38 percent approving the change, a new survey has found.
According to the survey by London-based market research company YouGov[2], four in 10 said they liked it more now that tweets could be 280 characters long, while around a third (32 percent) said they preferred it when tweets could only be 140 characters long. The remaining 30 percent were undecided on the change.
The 140-character limit was around since 2006 and became part of Twitter's personality. The new 280-character limit was made available virtually for all users - including for those who tweet in Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, and Tamil.
In September, Twitter launched a test[3] with a select group of users that expanded the 140-character limit.
"Our goal was to make this possible while ensuring we keep the speed and brevity that makes Twitter, Twitter," the micro-blogging website had said[4] at that time.
During the first few days of the test, many people tweeted the full 280-limit because it was new and novel but soon after, the behaviour normalised.
Only 5 percent of tweets sent were longer than 140 characters and only 2 percent were over 190 characters, Twitter had found.
YouGov also found a similar trend. About half (45 percent) preferred 140 character Twitter, while 42 percent liked 280 character Twitter more (13 percent did not have an opinion)....