What made Twitter look beyond 140 characters?

With growing popularity of direct messaging platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook, experts feel Twitter’s decision was to keep its customers happy and the site competitive.

What could have made Twitter grow beyond being just a micro-blogging, social media site and relent on its strict 140-character limit – at least for direct messaging services? Come July twitteratis can send direct messages on the platform as long as 10,000 characters.

But why this sudden decision?
With growing popularity of direct messaging platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook, experts feel Twitter’s decision was to keep its customers happy and the site competitive.

“Micro-blogging is the main identity of Twitter. They must be getting feedback from the users to increase the length of the direct messages from 140 characters,” Rishi Tejpal, principal research analyst at Gartner, said.
“I think the Twitter decision reflects its urge to diversify into different domains using existing infrastructure,” Tejpal added.

“We’ve done a lot to improve direct messages over the past year and have much more exciting work on the horizon.One change coming in July that we want to make you aware of now (and first!) is the removal of the 140 character limit in direct messages,” one of the Twitter developers wrote.

“Twitter has been upgrading its features with a focus on its direct messaging. Lifting the limit is going to be extremely useful for brands to not only handle customer issues but in delighting customers,” Sumana Samuk, digital marketing manager, Litehouse, an experience design house under Harman International.

Increasing the character limit will definitely provide more flexibility. “It will be a novelty,”said Sachin Doon, co-founder, Digital Research and Technology Solutions. “On the positive side, it could be used by businesses as well, like including product newsletter too in direct messages,” Doon told IANS.

“On the other side I feel it good for those who still love to write descriptive letter-like things to each other, people might actually start to use proper grammar and punctuation.”

Inversely, consumers will also find it convenient to reach out to brands from any location.

“Brands have trained and integrated their team to handle customer relations. Now Twitter’s direct messaging service will come to their rescue. They can have one-on-one conversations, they can have customers’ personal details, since the service will use Twitter’s platform,” Samuk added.