Twitter is testing an extended character limit of 280 characters for all languages that experience character "cramming" where 140 just isn't enough to adequately express yourself.
Having gotten used to a 280 character limit on micro.blog I can honestly say it makes a world of difference.
What's really interesting about the decision is that the 140 character limit was always seen as sacrosanct, one of the immutable laws of Twitter. The company was so set on this, much to the annoyance of many, that it was considered to be holding the network back.
"We understand since many of you have been Tweeting for years, there may be an emotional attachment to 140 characters – we felt it, too. But we tried this, saw the power of what it will do, and fell in love with this new, still brief, constraint"
The change is couched in terms of ensuring that users in all languages get the same opportunity to express themselves when compared to pictographic languages like Japanese and Chinese but this hasn't been an issue for the company for the past 11 years.
So why now?
@colinwalker Didn't they talk about a longer size 1-2 years ago, 500 chars or something like that?
@jemostrom There were rumours but Jack shot them down with the usual “140 is special” type talk.
@colinwalker oh, I remembered it as being a Twitter suggestion... but my memory is low-quality :)
@jemostrom I think it was rumoured when they opted to extend DM length but the board and Jack said no as it would disrupt the flow of the stream.
@colinwalker OK, that sounds correct