Twitter takes on messaging apps by removing 140 character limit from Direct

The 140-character limit does still live on in regular Tweets, though, so don’t take to Twitter today hoping to post a book to your timeline. Earlier this year, Twitter began supporting group conversations within direct messages.

With Twitter being a largely successful public experience, the idea to kill the character limit in regards to Direct Messages is to make the private section of the social media network more enjoyable.

Twitter originally announced it would remove the 140-character limit from direct messages back in June, the same day former CEO Dick Costolo announced he would step down.

The change rolls out starting today across Twitter’s mobile apps, desktop and web clients and Tweetdeck, and continue rolling out globally over the next few weeks. “It’s the No. 1 request we get from folks”, said Sachin Agarwal, product manager for DMs, in an interview.

Twitter has stuck with its 140 character limit through thick and thin, it’s integral to the microblogging service so it’s safe to say that tweets aren’t going to be any longer than that at least for the foreseeable future.

You may be wondering what this means for the public side of Twitter.

Twitter does want to remind users that “Sending and receiving Direct Messages via SMS” will still be limited.

“You can now chat on (and on) in a single Direct Message, and likely still have some characters left over”, a Twitter blog post wrote.