Twitter drops 140 character limit for DMs

Cape Town - Social media network Twitter has dropped the 140 character limit for direct messages.

The company announced on Wednesday that the limit imposed on the micro-blogging platform would be rescinded with immediate effect.

However, Fin24 understands that Twitter users in South Africa will have to wait as the company rolls out the update to its global audience.

"We'll begin rolling out this change today across our Android and iOS apps, on twitter.com, TweetDeck, and Twitter for Mac. It will continue to roll out worldwide over the next few weeks," Twitter said.

The shift follows changes in the way the platform operates.

Twitter recently expanded the ability of people to send a direct message to anyone on the platform irrespective of whether you followed them.

The changes reflect a strategy to build engagement as the company faces investor pressure of user numbers and revenue.

Twitter posted revenue growth of 61% to $502.4m in the second quarter of 2015, but that still translates to a loss of $136.7m.

Concerns over near stagnant user growth have seen shares of the platform slump to $29.40, well below its high of around $52 in April 2015.

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