Twitter is building a new product that will enough users Tweet with more than the standard 140-character limit, Re/code reports.
While the product is yet to see the light of day, sources report that it will most likely allow users to publish long-form content a la Facebook notes. 140 characters have been the standard Tweet limit since the inception of Twitter, which is fundamentally based of SMS technology. Traditional SMS actually has a 160-character limit but Twitter shaved off the first 20 characters to compensate to the @username limit.
Over the years, users have continued to demand for an expansion of the character limit. Twitter has responded in several interesting ways, from introducing Twitter cards, the ability to quote Tweets and, most recently, allowing unlimited characters in DMs. But for most users, these just don't quite cut it. Users have since found workarounds using tools like twitlonger (mostly now out of fashion) and, more recently, services like OneShot which allows them send screenshots of long text to Twitter. User have also picked up the the habit of Twitterstorms, which some find annoying.
Should Twitter enable this new feature, we could possibly be seeing the beginning of the end for Twitterstorms.