So yes, I know Apple is having their live event show right now. I also know Apple is promoting many of their latest products. Furthermore, I know many of our computer repair customers can’t get enough Apple (for reasons I can’t understand). But I want to talk about Twitter. Twitter doubles character count, but not use.
So remember last year, when Twitter doubled the maximum character count from 140 to 280? They thought this would boost Twitter use, because not even the NFL could do that. However, neither does doubling the character count. In fact, it doesn’t change anything at all. For instance, only 12% of all tweets surpass 140 characters. Only one percent even made it to 280 characters.
Here’s something else. When Twitter’s maximum count was 140, the average tweet was only 34 characters. Not that twitter doubles character count, the average tweet is only 33 characters. Maybe I should be more clear. Because while people aren’t using the new maximum count, people are using Twitter more. The number of tweets going out increased 30% since this new ruling. And responses to these tweets are going up as well. This is what we know of English speaking tweets. They’re still working on those of other languages, but they’re expecting the same results worldwide.
However, this is the most astonishing stat, and in a good way. The phrases ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ have increased since Twitter doubles character count. On the surface, that might not sound like much. But in this era where this is so much division, hatred and strife, hearing the phrase ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ more often is a huge step up! It even gives me hope for humanity. Also, keep in mind how much people use twitter and other IT services for trolling and other stuff. So yes, Twitter use itself is increasing. But is Twitter benefiting from other uses?