Twitter 280: Social site hopes more characters mean more users

Worried that the 140-character limit was too constraining to its users, Twitter has doubled its character limit in hopes of catching the larger user numbers of Instagram and Facebook.

Twitter is doubling the 140-character limit to 280 characters.

That means longer tweets for those who struggle to condense their message on the micro-blogging site.

The company announced the changes would be effective immediately.

It is hoped that Twitter’s evolution will help attract more users and increase growth.

Al Jazeera’s Hannah Hock-Star explains.