Wang Gaofei, CEO of Sina Weibo, recently revealed that the Chinese social network will abandon its 140-character limit starting Jan. 28.
People familiar with the matter say that the "revolutionary" change was triggered by rumors indicating that rival microblogging platform Twitter is set to remove its famous 140-character limit. As speculations on larger tweets have been making rounds for some time on social media, Weibo's leaders decided to be the first to make the move and beat Twitter to the punch.
According to a report from the Shanghai Daily, the Weibo format will remain the same, but with a twist. This means that it still displays 140 characters in one's user feed, while offering an attached link for those who want to read the full content of the post. In other words, your followers will be able to read the first 140 words of your longer posts.
Sina Weibo is a social network that emulates Facebook to some extent, and Twitter to a bigger level, and is on the peak of popularity in China. Since it was released in 2009 by Sina Corporation, Weibo amassed about 200 million active users.
Last year, information about changes in Twitter's character limit permeated the media. Jack Dorsey, the co-founder and CEO of Twitter, took the reins on a project named "140 Plus." The name is pretty self-explanatory, as the project investigates ways to extend Twitter's 140-character limit. However, heated debate exists within the company and on social media whether or not this is a good idea.
Insiders who wanted to keep their anonymity reported that Twitter could expand the character limit to as much as 10,000 characters. One argument in favor of this is that more and more users simply post screenshots containing huge chucks of text, signifying that the regular users would welcome the expansion.
Last year, Twitter faced pressure from investors as its shares plummeted to a worrying level. Changing the character limit could be a strategy to increase its monthly active users, whom the company is in dire need of if it wants to attract the investors' trust.
Weibo's character limit will be lifted from Jan. 28 to Feb. 28 for its open platform, a place reserverd for outside developers and third parties. After Feb. 28, regular users will find themselves free to type how much they please on the Chinese microblogging platform. Considering the country's heavy censorship, users will still have to be careful with the content of their posts.
