Twitter is in a desperate attempt to grow its user base, and to do that, the microblogging platform is trying to be more like its competitors, which offer a number of various features that Twitter currently doesn't have.
For instance, Facebook has spun out Messenger as a standalone messaging app that people can use to send each other private messages. Twitter, on the other hand, has preferred to keep its direct messaging (DM) system within its main interface, while also imposing the same 140-character limit to DMs to maintain one of the website's most popular identifying features.
But on Wednesday, Twitter formally lifted the character limit for private messages, a move that is not so surprising, since Twitter announced the change earlier this year. Twitter's Sachin Agarwal, product manager, says in a blog post that the removal of the limit will make "the private side of Twitter even more powerful and fun," without offering a more specific reason for the company's latest move.
"You can now chat on (and on) in a single direct message, and likely still have some characters left over," Agarwal says. "While Twitter is largely a public experience, direct messages let you have private conversations about the memes, news, movements and events that unfold on Twitter."
Twitter first announced it was lifting the 140-character limit on DMs in June, on the very same day then CEO Dick Costolo announced his resignation over his failure to grow Twitter's user base and make its investors happy. As Twitter promised back then, the short, pithy tweets limited to 140 characters will stay the same; only the DMs will be able to go on up to a total of 10,000 characters.
"You may be wondering what this means for the public side of Twitter," Agarwal says. "In a word, nothing."
For many years, Twitter has failed to make improvements for DMs, while other companies began heavily investing in their own instant messaging platforms. Finally realizing the growing influence of instant messages in online communication, Twitter seems to be playing catch up by rolling out new features that it hopes can attract more users to its platform.
In November, Twitter reinstituted the ability to send clickable links via DMs. This was followed by a series of new features that allow users to send photos and share tweets privately. In April, the company also introduced a new feature that lets users receive DMs from anyone on Twitter, as long as they explicitly choose to do so.