Sunday, December 4, 2011

Now Facebook updates can be over 60,000 characters

Facebook

By Rosa Golijan

A Facebook status update could be up to 420 characters long in March 2009, 500 characters in July 2011, and 5,000 characters in September 2011.

But now? Now you can post status updates that are over 60,000 characters long, according to?Facebook's?Journalist Program Manager Vadim Lavrusik.?In case you're wondering how far over 60,000 you can go: The character limit is set at 63,206.

How'd Facebook come up with this ridiculously large, and unusual, character limit? Bob Baldwin, the software engineer who set the new number, explains:

Facebook

Don't worry if that flies over your head ??geeky calculations tend to require several cups of coffee and a bit of homework for most of us.

Live Poll

Should Facebook updates really be up to 63,206 characters long?

  • 169821

    Yes! I need all that space!

    10%

  • 169822

    63,206 characters? I need more!

    6%

  • 169823

    No! I don't want to see people write that much!

    43%

  • 169824

    Yes, but only if people are signed up for mandatory writing classes and grammar lessons.

    41%

VoteTotal Votes: 323

What you really should know is that this change means that you could theoretically post an entire novel in fewer than nine Facebook updates. (Assuming that the average novel is about 500,000 characters long.)?Alternatively, you could squeeze over 450 tweets, about 395 text messages, or one incredibly long rant into a single new text space.

No guarantees that your friends will read it though.

Related stories:

Want more tech news, silly puns, or amusing links? You'll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on?Twitter, subscribing to her?Facebook?posts, or circling her?on?Google+.

Source: http://digitallife.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/01/9140900-now-facebook-updates-can-be-over-60000-characters

jeffrey eugenides jeffrey eugenides volcker rule matthew stafford rosie o donnell brady quinn brady quinn

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.