Twitter Blue Subscribers Can Now Post 10k Character Tweets

Twitter’s added one other component to its Twitter Blue subscription bundle, with Blue members now in a position to write tweets up to 10,000 characters long, whereas they will additionally make the most of textual content formatting choices, like daring and italics, offering extra inventive alternatives.

Which is cool, I suppose. I imply, I’m undecided that anybody truly needs to learn a 10k character tweet, however good to have the choice. I suppose.

Twitter Blue subscribers might already put up tweets up to 4k characters in length, offering expanded alternative to share extra in-depth posts. However even these are a little bit annoying, with the tweets lower off after the primary 280 characters in-stream. You then need to faucet by to learn the remainder, which feels considerably counter-intuitive for Twitter and its conventional UI.

However possibly it simply takes some getting used to – in any occasion, Twitter chief Elon Musk appears satisfied {that a} key barrier to individuals posting longer content material within the app is the prevailing size restrictions, and that by eradicating them, and increasing what’s attainable, that can see extra customers sharing extra of their unique content material to the platform direct, versus linking individuals off to their WordPress website, or YouTube within the case of video uploads.

Which is one other component of Twitter Blue, with subscribers additionally able to post videos up to 60 minutes long, however it stays to be seen whether or not customers actually wish to lean again and watch an hour lengthy clip within the tweet feed.

Does it actually matter to creators whether or not they have so as to add a YouTube hyperlink? Proper now, in all probability not, however then once more, possibly, as Twitter continues to construct out its monetization instruments for customers, that’ll turn into an even bigger consideration, as individuals look to monetize their longer movies within the app.

Musk has additionally pledged to offer higher income share than YouTube, if attainable, and I suppose, in principle, if all the pieces have been to go proper, Twitter might turn into an expanded content material hub, which might see extra unique materials posted to the app, and extra customers coming to Twitter, extra usually, to devour it.

However I don’t know – for context, at this level proper now, on this article that you simply’re studying, I’m simply now closing in on 2,000 characters. Do you actually need double, or 4x this quantity of textual content jammed right into a single tweet?

Twitter has, after all, tried longer kind textual content earlier than, with its Notes platform that it rolled out final 12 months.

As you’ll be able to see on this overview, with Notes, you entered your longer textual content right into a devoted, blogging-style window, with customers in a position to embody as much as 2,500 phrases per put up, together with photographs, embedded tweets and extra.

That looks like a greater format for long-form content material – however Twitter ended the Notes experiment shortly after Musk took over in October final 12 months, with this new variation as an alternative simply making common tweets even longer, with what is going to find yourself being large partitions of textual content that spool out from a ‘present extra’ immediate.

Although there are seemingly a whole lot of customers which can be experimenting with longer tweets at current, so there could be some case for them. However then once more, these customers are in all probability seeing good response to their longer tweets as a result of extra persons are partaking with them – as a result of the one solution to learn the remainder of the tweet is to click on on it, which then results in better-than-normal interplay charges.

That’s in all probability deceptive, in a metric sense, however possibly not, and possibly there’s a demand for ridiculously lengthy tweets that I simply don’t see, together with the expanded monetization potential for longer content material.

As a result of, after all, with longer content material, video or textual content, Twitter may insert extra advertisements, and that may very well be key to Musk’s broader plans for creator income share, in allocating a share of any advertisements proven in long-form posts with the creators of them. Musk has promised to implement an advert income share system based mostly on tweets, although he hasn’t truly executed it as but, and possibly, that is the place he’s headed with longer uploads, constructing in additional capability to pay creators for his or her content material.

However it simply feels a little bit misplaced. At this level, this text is now as much as 4k characters, areas included, which supplies some extra context on how a lot you can truly slot in a 10k character tweet.

The textual content formatting choices, in the meantime, have been in growth for some time, and will add one thing new to the Twitter expertise.

Although it’s probably not new, as Twitter already supports Unicode functionality, which implies that you’ve all the time been in a position to make use of textual content formatting choices in tweets, should you actually wished.

It’s simply not native, or intuitive – and possibly, by including them into the composer, that’ll get extra individuals dressing up their tweets with totally different textual content shows.

However it’s a bit wealthy that Twitter’s asking you to pay for these options. Like, you get the good thing about giving us extra of your unique content material, for the low, low worth of $8 per thirty days, and if you wish to monetize longer kind content material – i.e. generate profits from Twitter – you need to pay for the privilege. Which isn’t actually how that equation is meant to work, however that’s the place we’re at.

And once more, for context, this text is now round 5k characters lengthy, areas included. Twitter Blue customers will now be capable to put up a single tweet that’s double this size.

Is that what individuals need? We’ll discover out.