According to GigaOM, the main provider of US Internet service, Comcast has raised its data limits to 300GB from 250GB.

The key reasoning for this, according to Comcast itself, is set-top boxes like Roku and of course the iPad phenomenon:

Four years ago, when we first instituted a broadband Internet data usage threshold, the iPhone had just been introduced…the iPad didn’t exist…and the experience of watching streaming video on your home PC or through a Roku box or direct to an Internet-capable TV was much different than it is now.

It is true that we consume more data than ever before, and I personally don’t pay attention to my data consumption as a Comcast subscriber. If I were to think about how many devices I have connected to the Internet at my house I come up with: iPad, 2 iPhones, 2 laptops, Apple TV, and an XBox. That’s some serious data consumption I bet.

In its blog post today, Comcast also shared that if you were to go over the 300GB cap, you can purchase additional blocks of data at $10 per 50GB.

If you happen to be in a market where Comcast isn’t increasing the cap size and introducing more buckets of data, have no fear, the company says that it is lifting caps for everyone:

In markets where we are not trialing a new data usage management approach, we will suspend enforcement of our current usage cap as we transition to a new data usage management approach, although we will continue to contact the very small number of excessive users about their usage.

In my opinion, this is just the beginning of a huge turning point when it comes to data usage. With people dropping Cable TV more each year, we’re starting to use the Internet to consume absolutely everything: TV, movies, software, games, and communication. What will a data cap look like in the next five years and how often will Comcast update its plan? This is pretty scary stuff if you ask me.

Today, MediaRoost, a social media startup serving clients in the CRM, sales, marketing and PR industries announced its enterprise Twitter platform, TweetRoost, will now support tweets beyond Twitter’s 140 character limit. This feature is essentially turning Twitter into a handy CRM system.

“We think it’s a great bonus for companies, especially those dealing with continuous inquiries related to customer service and support issues,” explained Mark Krieger, President of MediaRoost in the press release. “They’ll just type out their tweet regardless of its length, and for the recipient if it’s over 140 characters, a link will appear at the end of the tweet, redirecting to a page with the complete text.”

A recent study conducted by Altimeter Group indicates that investments in building a scalable social CRM system connecting the social web to their customer database doubled from 2010 to 2011. Companies like Comcast, Dell, Southwest Airlines and Zappos have pioneered the use of Twitter for all aspects of customer service and support but since Twitter only allows tweets of 140 characters, it can be challenging for social media managers and marketers to properly engage with customers solely through Twitter. Most often, they must switch to phone or email.

In case you aren’t familiar with TweetRoost, the platform allows companies to archive all incoming and outgoing tweets, mentions, messages and saved searches, as well as set up search monitors for particular hashtags or keywords. The results are then permanently saved in the TweetRoost database. The new TweetRoost feature automatically generates a link and redirects to a dedicated Web page, making it easy for service and support personnel to offer comprehensive responses.