I once joked that the logical extension of Twitter was a service called Blurter, where all posts were limited to one character. Sure, you could see what someone has to say via their Twitter feed, but wouldn't it be quicker to get Lady Gaga's message, "U"? Both concise and intriguing. Now, Farhad Manjoo suggests something radical: What if Twitter doubled their character limit? The 140-character limit came from the pre-smartphone era, when the service's creators thought people would all be using it by sending SMS messages, which were limited to 160 characters. But that's no longer true:
Although I expect blistering attacks from Twitter fans, I suspect that if Twitter did expand the character limit, people would quickly become acolytes. More and more, I see people resorting to hacks to get around Twitter's limit—they split their tweets up into multivolume epics, they use services like TwitLonger to add heft, or they direct people to posts on Facebook, Quora, and now Google+. Expanding beyond 140 would make these tricks unnecessary, allowing more conversation and interaction to take place within Twitter's friendly confines. It would also make the site far more pleasant to use—I'm getting sick of racking my brain for shorter words every time I want to ask a straightforward question.
Proponents of Twitter's limit argue that I should feel frustrated when I tweet. The classic defense of the 140-character perimeter is that, as with a haiku or sonnet, a rigid form inspires creativity. I don't buy it. For one thing, that argument positions Twitter as more high-minded than it really is, or needs to be. Obviously, we aren't all poets, and we shouldn't have to be to use a mainstream social network. Rather than poetry, Twitter's limit seems to encourage sloppiness and sound bites. You can't fit a complicated argument in 140 characters, but it's the perfect size to squeeze in ad-hominem attacks, to misdirect, or to shrug off people who challenge you.
There's no reason why Twitter's original form has to be sacrosanct. That's why constitutions allow for amendments. As Manjoo explains, the creators thought it would be mostly used for status messages ("Having eggs for breakfast"), which I personally find to be the least interesting and useful thing one can tweet, and which are less and less important. If the original rationale for 140 characters is no longer relevant, Twitter can make a decision that some other number is better. They're right that it wouldn't work if it was unlimited, but at 200 or 280 characters, it might allow for two whole sentences, which is often superior to one.
I suppose one could argue that it would be like building a new lane onto a highway -- it seems spacious at first, but before you know it, more cars have come and things are just as crowded. Likewise, a 280-character limit might begin to feel similarly constrained. But why not give it a shot?
