Twitter, which once only allowed you to send messages with a maximum of 180 characters, now allows much more. Much, much more.
In fact, Twitter Blue subscribers can now send tweets that have more characters in them than your average blog post. More than the average newsletter as well. 10,000 of them to be exact.
Tweets aren't only getting longer, they're also getting rich text of sorts with Twitter confirming that Blue subscribers will be able to add bold and italic formatting to messages posted to the service.
How many?!
Twitter announced the change via its Twitter Write account, saying that "Twitter now supports Tweets up to 10,000 characters in length, with bold and italic text formatting." But that only applies to people who pay for Twitter Blue of course, meaning those of us who don't pay will be left with the current 280-character limit.
We’re making improvements to the writing and reading experience on Twitter! Starting today, Twitter now supports Tweets up to 10,000 characters in length, with bold and italic text formatting.Sign up for Twitter Blue to access these new features, and apply to enable…April 14, 2023
This comes as Twitter CEO and owner Elon Musk finds himself in a war of words with newsletter outfit Substack. Twitter was accused of blocking links to Substack recently, with Musk claiming that the company was taking data from Twitter with the intent of using it to launch a competitor.
The irony of Twitter now launching tweets that effectively allow people to publish whole newsletters to its platform hasn't been lost on some.
Substack's Twitter competitor, called Notes, is already live but has so far enjoyed limited success.
Newsletters have become a great way for creators to keep in contact with their readers and have been around for decades. And while you can't read tweets, all the best e-readers have ways to get email newsletters as well — making them a great way to read long-form content without staring at your iPhone's screen any longer than you have to.
As for Twitter, it remains to be seen how many 10,000-character-long tweets actually get published on the platform.
