Twitter Blue customers in the United States now have access to a new feature that allows them to post tweets with up to 4,000 characters. Longer tweets will be presented at a standard length in the main feed, with a ‘Show more…’ indicator leading viewers to the rest of the text.
The feature is only available to Twitter Blue members, who account for a small portion of Twitter’s 250 million users. Elon Musk, Twitter 2.0’s CEO, has indicated that allowing longer tweets will open up new channels for monetization and draw more top voices to the service.
A large number of popular creators will be unable to use the new function, limiting its reach and impact.
While longer tweets may be useful in some situations, such as the latest Twitter Files, it appears shortsighted to limit the capability to a small percentage of users. The potential for this new feature to catch on is questionable, and it needs to be seen whether it will increase Twitter engagement and profitability.
