Twitter Is Testing a Way to Let Users Write More Than 280 Characters in One Post

Todd Spangler
·2 min read

Good news for verbose Twitter users: The social network is testing out a new feature that will let people go over the 280-character limit in a single piece of content.

With the new feature, called Notes, users can include text — up to 2,500 words — as well as photos, videos and GIFs in posts that can be written, published and shared on Twitter. The Note card will show up in the Twitter timeline as a tweet that contains a preview of what’s in the longer post.

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The company said it has launched a public test of Notes with a small group of writers from the U.S., U.K., Canada and Ghana, according to a company rep. “We’re currently running a closed test with a small group of writers who will help us learn how best to support people who come to write on Twitter,” the company said.

No word yet from Elon Musk — the multibillionaire whose $44 billion takeover bid for Twitter remains pending — thinks of the new feature yet. But he’s floated a range of ideas for new Twitter features, including authenticating everyone on the platform and charging companies a fee to use the service.

Originally, Twitter posts were capped at 140 characters, designed to fit into the official limit for SMS text messages on mobile phones. In 2017, it expanded the tweet limit to 280 characters.

Twitter users will see the new Note card in their timeline if they follow a writer who posts a Note card; if someone they follow includes a Note URL in a tweet; or someone they follow retweets or quote-tweets a Note card. Additionally, Notes will have unique URLs that people can navigate to from off the Twitter platform, whether or not they are logged in to Twitter (and even if they do not have a Twitter account).

Users can interact with a Note card in the same ways they would with a regular tweet. However, after selecting a Note card to read the longer-form article, it is not currently possible to react to or reply to a Note from the article itself.

The author of a Twitter Note will be able to edit it after it has been published — unlike regular tweets today, although the company has announced that it is working on a long-requested edit button.

Twitter has more details on Notes at this link.

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