Twitter confirmed last night that tweets would be limited to 112 characters with immediate effect, as the global economic downturn continued to depress its revenue streams.
'With the current character limit our business is not sustainable, all those servers and routers don't run on millet' said Jack Dorsey, founder. 'But, to be honest, we're kinda sick of you lot rambling on and on and on at our expense. 140 characters? Jeez, people! When I was a boy we told people what we had for breakfast with 6 letters - and no vowels.'
The announcement provoked immediate backlash across the web, with many accusing Twitter corp of taking the "Google path to ignorance" from cuddly start-up to "global dick-swinger". 'It's got to be the herald for a premium subscription service' said Kelvin Spleenstein, editor of The Twit fanzine. 'First they take the good stuff away, then they charge to give it back. No way, man. We shall not retweet, we shall atwack - and if they don't back down we'll find some other way to broadcast our cinnamon versus chocolate doughnut dilemmas.'
Twitter's cut received support from an unexpected quarter, British chancellor George Osbourne. 'I've said all along that the indiscriminate reduction in spending is the only way to sort any problem out - even relationship issues' he said. 'I welcome Jack Dorsey into the enlightened-yet-hated fold, as a fellow traveller to oblivion'.
Mr Dorsey admitted that his company had considered charging for greater microblog trouser room, but was still consulting user groups. 'Why not?' he continued. 'For a couple of dollars a month you could tweet the whole of (Sebastian Faulks' novel) Birdsong , if you really wanted to. You still could with the standard service, although you'd have to reduce it to "hot French housewife shags Brit teenager, messes his head LOL". In this case that might be enough. Oh shit, let's keep things as they are.'