TWEET TWEET… WILL TWO MILLION KENYANS TWITTER MORE?

Social media platform Twitter, with over 328 million users worldwide, nearly 2 million of them in Kenya, has announced it is experimenting with increasing the text limit of a post on its service to 280 characters, double the existing limit of 140.

Twitter say their aim is to remove constraints that they feel have put people off from using their service. Critics say it was the brevity of a Tweet that was part of its appeal.

“When people don’t have to cram their thoughts into 140 characters and actually have some to spare, we see more people tweeting”, Twitter announced, not surprisingly, in a blog post.

But Twitter knows that the move (albeit still at the testing stage) might not be universally popular.

“We understand since many of you have been tweeting for years [Twitter has been around for over a decade], there may be an emotional attachment to 140 characters”, said the company in a statement, “But we tried this, saw the power of what it will do, and fell in love with this new, still brief, constraint”.

The tests will be based on a sample of randomly chosen users but the company has not said whether it will definitely bring in the change for all users.

TOP 10 TWITTER PROFILES IN KENYA

1. Uhuru Kenyatta (@UKenyatta)
2. NTV Kenya ((@ntvkenya)
3. Citizen TV Kenya (@citizentvkenya)
4. KTN (@KTNKenya)
5. William Samoi Rutu (@WilliamsRuto)
6. Raila Odinga (@RailaOdinga)
7. Daily Nation (@dailynation)
8. Cyprian, Is Nyakundi (@C_NyaKundiH)
9. Larry Madowo (@LarryMadowo)
10. Jeff Koinange, MBS (@KoinangeJeff)