Twitter is launching the 280 character update today, with users across the globe getting a big boost to how much they can tweet.
The social networking giant is doubling their signature 140 character limit from today following a trial run.
In a blog post, Twitter product manager Aliza Rosen explained why Twitter was rolling out the 280 character limit.
She said: “We are making this change after listening and observing a problem our global community was having (it wasn’t easy enough to Tweet!), studying data to understand how we could improve, trying it out, and listening to your feedback.”
Rosen added that the during a trial run that took place in September, Twitter users by and large still preferred to keep it short and sweet.
READ MORE: ALL THE LATEST TWITTER NEWS
She said: “During the first few days of the test many people Tweeted the full 280 limit because it was new and novel, but soon after behaviour normalised.
“We saw when people needed to use more than 140 characters, they Tweeted more easily and more often.
“But importantly, people Tweeted below 140 most of the time and the brevity of Twitter remained.”
The Twitter 280 character update will – for the time being – not be rolled out to those tweeting in Japanese, Korean and Chinese.
Twitter said this is because in these languages cramming a message into 140 characters is not an issue.
Some Twitter users who have logged on today may have noticed the 140 character limit was still in place for them.
The rollout for the new character limit began last night, so some users may see it go live for them sooner than others.
But a Twitter spokesperson said everyone should have the new 280 character limit “very soon”.
If you’re still seeing the old character limit on your Twitter, you can take a few steps.
Make sure you’ve updated the app on your iOS or Android smartphone to the latest version.
And if you’re on the desktop site refresh your browser.
Once the new character limit is live, users will see the old countdown from 140 replaced with a new dial.
This fills up gradually as the 280 character limit is taken up more and more.
Discussing the impact the new character limit will have on Twitter timelines, Rosen said: “Your timeline reading experience should not substantially change, you’ll still see about the same amount of Tweets in your timeline.
“For reference, in the timeline, Tweets with an image or poll usually take up more space than a 190 character Tweet.
“It’s worth emphasising again that people in the test got very excited about the extra space in the beginning and many Tweets went way beyond 140.
“People did silly (creative!) things like writing just a few characters per line to make their Tweets extra large. It was a temporary effect and didn’t last long.
“We expect to see some of this novelty effect spike again with this week’s launch and expect it to resume to normal behaviour soon after.”