Twitter, which became a public company in 2013, has never reported a profit, even though it has built a loyal base of celebrities, journalists and political figures, including prolific tweeter Trump. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said that longer test tweets got tended to prompt more engagement by others using the service. Some analysts maintain longer tweets are not the fix Twitter needs, and may even change the appealing ability to take in messages with glances. It also risks Twitter looking a bit more like Facebook, one analyst contended, and might prompt the leading online social network to respond to what it might see as a competitive threat. Meanwhile, many users welcomed the news and said raising the character cap was long overdue. Some people already resort to long strings of rapid-fire tweets, known as "tweet storms," to string together lengthy comment.