[jquery] How to hide/show more text within a certain length (like youtube)

I know this question is a little old (and has had it's answer selected already) but for those wanting another option that're coming across this question through Google (like I did), I found this dynamic text shortener:

Dynamically shortened Text with “Show More” link using jQuery

I found it was better because you could set the character limit, rather than extra spans in the code, or setting a specific height to a container.
Hope it helps someone else out!