A Twitter Oddity
I have a hard time keeping up with my tweets. I just get so many each day.
I have an ever harder time keeping up with Direct Messages on Twitter (DMs). I usually don’t read them.
However, I took a peak at my DMs tonight and I came across something highly unusual.
As you are aware, all tweets and DMs are limited to 140 characters.
So imagine my amazement when I spotted this on my DMs.
Yes, you are seeing this correctly.
No, this is not a doctored image. I just added the red highlight using a paint program, but I assure you that is exactly how the DM looks on my screen.
That is 394 characters, including spaces!
So how did this happen? If anyone has any answers or theories, I’d love to hear them.
Most definitely a Twitter oddity.
Hi Joel
I bet it’s done with the relatively new Twitzer Firefox add-on – check it out here. http://bit.ly/JVkvS
Maybe Twitter is working on a premium package that lets you pay for longer tweets? I have seen some neat tricks on Twitter but this is odd.
Hmm, oddity indeed…check out her tweet:
http://twitter.com/letsconnect/statuses/1665499235
It’s a well-known fact that people who call themselves “social media experts” get lots of DM spam of any length. (kidding).
I’ve had two of these, this week – neither from the same person yours was from. And both were very spammy.
I too would like to know what’s going on here.
I often DM longer than 140 characters & receive some that are longer, too. Mine usually are limited to about 70-90 characters over 140, so I’m guessing that would be about 210-230 in total length.
I generally use twhirl, and discovered some time ago that it lets me use more than 140 characters, even though it registers (while I’m composing my message) that I’m over the 140 by showing me the number that I’m over as a negative number.
Doesn’t work for @ messages, but seems to for DMs.
Suppose Twitter knows post is being made by a woman? You guys always say we talk to much…right? ‘Twitter Knows’….just like the ‘Shadow Knows’ 😉
uau, how can we do that too.
That is an interesting find and one that my team are investigating now. We are first to market the 250 Character SuperTweet which uses Twitter’s Long Version SMS.
It is also a standard feature with our upcoming Twitter Desktop Application.
http://Twunami.com/
I’m surprised to see 394 Characters! 255 is/was the absolute maximum unless something has changed since we last tested. Back to the drawing board to see how the above got through. THANK YOU!
There was a short period where DM’s where limited to 140 characters, but it appears that Twitter has lifted the ban. Before and after this time period one could send very long messages. You can post longer messages using Twhirl even though it complains about being over the limit, but they might appear on some people’s timelines as truncated with ellipses at the end. This depends on the recipient’s client. Some clients will clip the message because they expect all messages to be 140 characters. Tweetdeck does this – it’s my only major complaint about it.
I bet later on we can also add image on the dMs
Its must be an upgrade maybe they pay more for that service.
Interesting oddity. I haven’t personally seen one of these, though I will test out some of the suggestions as well. At least it’s not happening with updates or replies, as that would seriously damage twitter’s reputation.
There are a few ways you can do this now… its kind of annoying
It’s most likely someones php script attached to the Twitter API. The twitter API is very easy to fool around with. You just set up the php with a cron on your server it can even auto post every so often. I’m sure you can muscle in more characters.
I think if you use tools like Tweetlater to send auto-responses to your followers, you can write DM’s longer than 120 characters.
Hmmm very strange indeed. Maybe it’s a hacker of sorts?
My daughter has a Twitter account (protected updates) and today tweeted an update about the Jonas Brothers and it contained 165 characters. I am commenting here so it’s known that whatever this oddity is, has nothing to do with premium features or anything spammy. The “…” link appears on her Twitter account with link to the full tweet. It looks like it’s some form of occasional fluke. She only uses the Web to update, no 3rd party apps. Strangeness!
DMs are definitely not limited to 255 characters or 400. I just got one which was a 1,000 characters! Pretty strange.