SAN FRANSISCO, California –
Twitter [NYSE: TWTR] may have finally put an end to the jokes about getting all your thoughts down in 140 characters or less, as this morning they announced their new paid service, dubbed Twit-Pro, which allows users an additional 60 characters per ‘tweet,’ bringing the total to 200.
“We are very excited to be debuting our new paid service, Twit-Pro, to the world.” Said Jack Dorsey, Chairman. “This new Twitter experience should help those micro-bloggers out there who want to say what they’re thinking and feeling, but need more than 140 characters to do it. We think it’s a huge leap forward for the Twittersphere.”
Twit-Pro, which Dorsey said will be fully integrated into existing Twitter apps for all platforms, as well as the Twitter website by the beginning of next month, will allow users the ability to pay a nominal monthly fee in exchange for the extra 60 characters when tweeting. Dorsey did not say how much they would be charging, but he did say they had worked out deals with all major U.S. cell phone carriers to allow users to bill directly to their provider.
Aside from just allowing for extra characters, Twit-Pro is also going to be offering the option of recording and posting videos into the user’s Twitter feed, with recording time up to 45 seconds.
“We wanted to take the best experiences you find on all social media, the most popular apps and websites, and combine them. We will now be allowing users to use more characters and record short video tweets, much like Vine, and embed them directly to all your followers. The days of linking and using other services to post into your Twitter feed are coming to an end. We want everything to be handled right by our own service.”
Other features announced with Twit-Pro are a song and media identifier, so you can instantly tweet the song or TV show you are watching just by letting your phone “listen” to the sounds around you, as well as a check-in feature that will let users mark down places they’ve visited with links to reviews for restaurants, movies, night clubs, or even national parks and resorts.
Twit-Pro is slated to become a live feature in the next Twitter update, scheduled for July 1st on Android, July 7th on the iPhone, and July 13th for Windows OS.