Micro-blogging service Sina Weibo, China's answer to Twitter, has dropped its 140-character limit and begun allowing posts with up to 2000 characters, a move that comes as its San Francisco-based rival is contemplating a similar change.
Sina Weibo's "VIP" users - those who pay a monthly fee of around $US1.50 ($A2) - will be able to post messages with up to 2000 characters starting on Thursday, while the new format will be available to all of the company's 200 million users on February 28, after a one-month trial period concludes.
Twitter, which has around 300 million users, is blocked in China.
The move generated little excitement on Thursday among ordinary Weibo users, while numerous VIP customers complained that they were able to write longer posts from their computers but not their smartphones.
Besides the delayed rollout for all users, the lukewarm reception may also be attributable to the fact that users have been getting around the 140-character limit by posting screenshots of larger blocks of text.
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Moreover, many Chinese words are made up of just a single character and most have only two or three characters, allowing more information to be transmitted in 140 characters than Twitter users can convey under that same limit in other languages.
Speculation that Twitter will do away with its 140-character limit have sparked discussion on social media, although the company has not yet confirmed that the change will be carried out.
