Sina Weibo, the Chinese equivalent to Twitter, has announced that it is dropping the 140-character limit that had partially defined the service in the past. Starting next week, according to the BBC, it will roll out the ability for users to write longer posts, although the text will be similarly truncated when they appear in users’ feeds.
“Senior users” will gain access to the uncapped service first, and the rollout will continue through the end of February. As Weibo CEO Wang Gaofei explained, “During the pilot run, only 140 characters will be displayed in followers’ feeds and a link will appear to show the entire content if a post exceeds the character limit.”
The move is similar to one Twitter is reported to be considering: increasing the tweet character limit to 10,000, truncating posts in users’ timelines, and requiring them to click to expand. Jack Dorsey hinted as much when he addressed the rumor indirectly. “The majority of tweets will always be short and sweet and conversational,” he wrote. But maybe there’s no need for an arbitrary character limit anymore.
