Twitter is gearing up to launch a long-form blogging feature on its website, one that will allow users to expand on its current (and already too long) 280-character limit. And we mean really expand – by up to 2,500 words.
Twitter is famous for its requirement to curtail a thought into a mere 280 characters, which you can get around by posting multiple threads. But a new blogging feature as first reported by TechCrunch, and published earlier today by Gizmodo Australia, has now been confirmed by Twitter as being called “Notes”. And it will allow users to publish long form blog posts on Twitter.
✨ Introducing: Notes ✨
We’re testing a way to write longer on Twitter. pic.twitter.com/SnrS4Q6toX
— Twitter Write (@TwitterWrite) June 22, 2022
As you can see in the GIF above, there’d be a new ‘Write’ tab, which will house your notes. You’d type a header, add a hero pic, then add the body text and embed photos, videos, GIFs and other tweets . Similar to what I’m doing here. You can edit Notes pre and post-publish and also access them on and off Twitter. Visitors to your Twitter page can access your Notes via a dedicated tab on your profile.
Just don’t call it “Twitter Notes”.
“A few features of Notes (Not ‘Twitter Notes’, Notes),” it wrote in the announcement.
Twitter has come a long way from its humble 140-character beginnings. The website doubled its offering to allow users to post up to 280 characters per tweet in 2017. Three years later, Twitter made it easier to add tweets to a thread, which may have been the first signal in their pivot to hosting longer form content.
Twitter said the move to Notes was in response to people using the platform to post pictures of longer announcements and steer followers to outside newsletters. But this way, the blue bird site can keep people in-app.
“Notes will give people the ability to go over 280 characters on Twitter in a single piece of content, with the inclusion of photos, videos, GIFs, and Tweets. Notes can be written, published, and shared on Twitter, and read all across the Internet,” Twitter wrote.
“Twitter is where writers live. And as the platform for writers, it’s clear that Twitter is essential — from the proximity to an engaged audience, to the conversation around a writer’s work, to the community of readers (and, often, cheerleaders) that Twitter provides, to the critical role it plays in the livelihoods and careers of writers, on and off Twitter.”
According to the BBC, the word limit for Notes will be 2,500 words.
OK. We didn’t ask for this.