It's always been frustrating for some that Twitter has a low character count limit for each tweet. Since then, it has increased from 140 characters to 280. The platform has taken that further by introducing Notes, but that has changed as well, in name anyway, as it is now called Articles.
Twitter's Articles
Through Articles, users will be able to post longer text-based content. Not only will the character limit go beyond 280, but different kinds of media can be added or embedded including videos, images, and links all at the same time.
A user tweeted that the company is quietly renaming Notes which was in the experimental stage, to Articles. Musk replied by saying that it will allow users to post "long, complex articles with mixed media," and even publish a book if they want.
This will allow users to post very long, complex articles with mixed media. You could publish a book if you want.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 18, 2023
Notes has been available for select countries such as the US, the UK, Ghana, and Canada, as reported by Engadget, but aside from the limited locations, only a few users had access to the long-form post feature.
Notes has not been mentioned since before Musk tried to acquire Twitter, although the feature was already mentioned when the tech billionaire's acquisition plans were already made known. Since then, the renaming of the feature is the only time it's been acknowledged again.
As for the content itself, the Articles feature will have its own separate timeline so it would not be mixed up with the standard short-form tweets. Users will be able to share articles in tweets and the long-form posts will appear in a user's timeline.
There is still no news as to when Articles will be rolled out globally. As of right now, it is still in the experimental stage and developers are still working on it. Only a few users have access to it, but there are various ways users can publish long-form content without it.
Being a Twitter Blue subscriber means that you will not have the same limitations unverified users have. For instance, the rate limit for verified users in reading posts is 10,000 a day, while unverified accounts only get 1,000. Verified users can tweet with up to 25,000 characters.
Positive Changes for Twitter
This serves as a nice change of pace compared to the other changes that Twitter has implemented since Musk took over. Aside from the potential way for users to express themselves in more than 280 characters, Twitter is also sharing its ad revenue with creators.
The company has announced that the creators who have ads in the tweet replies will get a portion of the revenue that was earned from it, according to The Verge. Although, the company did not state the percentage of the cut.
It was also made known that only Twitter Blue users will be able to benefit from the new policy, meaning that you'll have to pay the monthly fee in order to get your share every three months. There are also metrics that creators need to reach first before getting paid such as overall engagements.
