Yesterday I ran a piece where I said Twitter's 140-char limit is probably in its final days. It's gotten a lot of attention.

Next question: When will the change be announced? Imho, it's not hard to read those tea-leaves either.

Facebook is having a developer conference next Wednesday and Thursday. It's likely that they will talk about their plans for news distribution at this conference.

David Carr ran an article in the NY Times last October that previewed the pitch we'll likely hear. They want publishers to post full content to Facebook. In return they are willing to share ad revenue with the publishers.

The reason this is so important? In a mobile environment, clicking on a link to read a story is a very big price. We all know that mobile is where Facebook's growth is coming from. News reading on mobile can become much more fluid. That's what Facebook wants to do.

So, with Facebook getting full content from at least some publishers, and the announcements likely coming next week, does Twitter really want to explain the magic of 140, and ancient limits of SMS, or would they rather have an equivalent proposition for publishers? Smartphones aren't just the future, they're here, now. It seems like this is the moment to say 140 was nice, it got us to where we are, but now because of mobile, we have to get more text from publishers, if only to remain competitive with Facebook in the one area Twitter still has an advantage (for now) -- news, especially mobile news.

Still reading tea-leaves. I have no direct info, but if Twitter doesn't make the change now, they will be too late. My bet: It'll happen before Facebook's announcements next week.