Twitter is famous for their 140 character limits, but they are looking to back away from that. At least for one type of message. The company has just announced that direct messages, which are entirely separate from Tweets, will no longer have this limitation in place.
Sachin Agarwal, the product manager for direct message wrote, “We’ve done a lot to improve Direct Messages over the past year and have much more exciting work on the horizon. You may be wondering what this means for the public side of Twitter. Nothing! Tweets will continue to be the 140 characters they are today.”
The change will be put in place next month.
Direct Messages are only visible to the individual sending them and the individual they are being sent to. They are not nearly as popular as the Tweets, which are more public. One does wonder if this is Twitter’s way of ‘testing the waters’ for expanding the character limitations. It is unlikely that they will ever remove the restrictions completely, but you never know.
