I can't believe that there are so many backers of the old limit! Don't you guys hate that you have to always compromise on punctuation, select shorter (but less precise) synonyms, and other just to fit into the story that Twitter was trying to push all this time, but which wasn't the reality (of people using Twitter via SMS)? Okay, now, Twitter goes to another extreme - from too short, to too long. I'm fine with shorter message, but 140 is way too short. Modern phones combine SMSs into a bigger blob. Use that and just make a limit of 5 SMSs or something along these lines.
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I actually really enjoy the process of having to re-write my thoughts to have them fit. Reminds me what is crucial and what is superfluous. (139 chars)
u r so rite! 140 char limit limits my thoughts 2 that which is critical. without it id waste tons of space expressing my brilliant thoughts (140chars)
(speaking of crap formatting, I still can't get used to HN comment formatting.. apparently no way to make a line feed or a list, at least, none that's documented)
But seriously, it's ironic that Twitter limits tweets to 140char but the site and mobile app are some of the worst wastes of screen real estate I've ever seen. I keep trying to find it of some value but I just can't do it. Either nothing shows up in my feed, or I follow "must follow" people and get to hear them go on about random crap I don't care about. My real actual Twitter mobile app feed currently looks like this:
* retweet
* promoted tweet
* while you were away (1)
* while you were away (2)
* while you were away (3)
* while you were away (4)
* while you were away (5)
* actual tweet in proper chronological order (1)
* actual tweet in proper chronological order (2)
* people you may want to follow (1)
* people you may want to follow (2)
* people you may want to follow (3)
I had to scroll down 4 entire (iPhone 6) screenfuls of tweets before I got to the chronologic list of recent tweets I actually want to see, and even then, saw only 2 of them before the next chunk of junk! The light grey bar on a light grey background is poor delineation between sections, as well. It blows my mind that a mostly-text medium with such a strict character limit manages to have vastly worse information density than Facebook.
I use them differently, too, of course. Facebook feels more personal; I'm friends with real-life friends, and am a member of some groups for fun. Most of the updates feel personal to me.
Twitter I use to follow "important figures" and some friends.. but no friends tweet, and the important figures never say anything interesting.. or at least, if they do, I can't get to it, because the UI is such garbage.
it's what gave Twitter it's identity and allowed me to discover valuable information quickly. sticking a read more button to expand a tweet is just lazy and bad UX but worse, alters the fundamental usefulness of Twitter for me. it basically breaks the reading experience while introducing a host of issues and unnecessary friction. I'll surely alter my usage as well. I post way less now because of all of this AB testing and lack of product leadership.
I'm a backer of the 140-char limit because I read Twitter but don't post on it. Concision is good for readers at the expense of posters.
True, but often people need to post multiple tweets, and somebody manages to reply in-between and then tracking the conversation becomes harder on the reader.