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Twitter Considering 10,000-Character Limit for Tweets

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Re: Twitter Considering 10,000-Character Limit for Tweets

#132
post #4

Well... some back-of-the-envelope math. Assuming average characters-per-word of 4.5[1] and also add 1 for space/punctuation for a word unit of 5.5: 10000/5.5 = 1818 words. 1800 words @ 250 wpm average reading speed is ~7 minutes. A 10,000 char (7 minute article) expansion looks to me like a "micro-blogging" platform rather than "tweeting". I'm guessing it all goes back to Twitter trying many things to become bigger t…

By the way, your statistics are for English.

For German, where we have 14.3 characters per word on average[1], we get:

10'000/14.8 = 676 words.

676 words @ 250 wpm is 2 Minutes 42 Seconds.

A 2½ Minute article is very short, like a short comment in a newspaper, and would fit very well into a microblogging site.

[1] http://www.duden.de/sprachwissen/sprachratgeber/durchschnitt...

Re: Twitter Considering 10,000-Character Limit for Tweets

#133
post #82

Okay what's differentiating Twitter from fucking Facebook now? Only the facts that there's (currently) no policy against pseudonyms, bots and multiple accounts and that there's no useless crap games like Farmville.

I think that the crucial difference between twitter and facebook is not the length of the posts, but the fact that twitter is broadcast, or "publish-subscribe", while facebook is semi-private through reciprocal permission (by default).

And the publish/subscribe model being a possibly superior alternative to a two-way opt-in friendship model, is probably the reason for twitter's success not the 140 characters. So by keeping the subscription model but allowing for longer content, I think it's a win-win.

Re: Twitter Considering 10,000-Character Limit for Tweets

#134
post #44

I can't believe that there are so many backers of the old limit! Don't you guys hate that you have to always compromise on punctuation, select shorter (but less precise) synonyms, and other just to fit into the story that Twitter was trying to push all this time, but which wasn't the reality (of people using Twitter via SMS)? Okay, now, Twitter goes to another extreme - from too short, to too long. I'm fine with shor…

I actually really enjoy the process of having to re-write my thoughts to have them fit. Reminds me what is crucial and what is superfluous. (139 chars)

Re: Twitter Considering 10,000-Character Limit for Tweets

#135
post #96

Twitter could charge 1¢ for each character over 140. That will encourage people to (still) be concise, but also monetize people (or companies) that want to say more.

The best suggestion I've seen is 1¢ for the 141st character, 2¢ for the 142nd, 4¢ for the 143rd, etc. Going slightly over 140 costs a trivial amount, but it would be stupidly expensive to tweet anything really long. EDIT: I found where I stole this idea from: http://www.interfluidity.com/v2/6207.html

I fail to see the rationale behind this.

Re: Twitter Considering 10,000-Character Limit for Tweets

#136
post #115
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best suggestion I've seen is 1¢ for the 141st character, 2¢ for the 142nd, 4¢ for the 143rd, etc. Going slightly over 140 costs a trivial amount, but it would be stupidly expensive to tweet anything really long. EDIT: I found where I stole this idea from: http://www.interfluidity.com/v2/6207.html

Ah yes, only $100k for a 160 character tweet. Edit: mental math botched. I thought I remembered the powers of 2 better than I actually did. 160 characters would be about 10k, and 100k would buy you a whopping 163 characters.

What? Not at all!

Here's the price for those message lengths:

141 $0.01

142 $0.03

143 $0.07

144 $0.15

145 $0.31

146 $0.63

147 $1.27

148 $2.55

149 $5.11

150 $10.23

151 $20.47

152 $40.95

153 $81.91

154 $163.83

155 $327.67

156 $655.35

157 $1,310.71

158 $2,621.43

159 $5,242.87

160 $10,485.75

Re: Twitter Considering 10,000-Character Limit for Tweets

#137
Good.

My biggest issue with Twitter's 140 character limit is it removes all opportunity for nuance. Within 140 characters you can just barely voice and opinion or thought in the most basic terms. Yes you can split your thoughts into multiple tweets but people will typically only focus on the first tweet that really expresses the basis of an idea and that's what will get shared the most. Allowing more wordy and nuanced tweets probably won't solve the social media over reactions that seem to flare up, but maybe it'll help if people aren't forced to awkwardly clarify their positions with a bunch of tweets that have to be read from the bottom up.

Re: Twitter Considering 10,000-Character Limit for Tweets

#138
post #107

2016 is the year Twitter jumped the shark. https://ello.co/teanee/post/0M0OKQLGuxdtXpjHKXAq1w

Link also says 2016 is Ello's year. Trolling, irony, or sincere? You decide!

sorry ;) I guess I came across as trollish, but I really loved Twitter and it's difficult to see it on its current path. There were so many historical and important industry news items I learned first on Twitter. Twitter owns the in-the-moment. However, I'm passionate about UX and see something really cool being built at Ello. I've dealt with all the platforms and Ello to me is very unique. Deep down, I want Twitter to still succeed, but I see too many bad product decisions coming from a company that lacks clarity and UX passion.

Re: Twitter Considering 10,000-Character Limit for Tweets

#139
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, there's a lot of value in forcing people to be concise. That said, it also privileges readily-echoes soundbytes over discussion. This has the side effect of wrecking discussion.

Easy solution: charge users per character. I would happily pay.

How many others do you imagine would pay twitter by the character rather than use mediums not so constrained and how much.

The most expensive medium per character is text messaging

https://www.twilio.com/sms/pricing and each carrier effectively holds a monopoly on reaching that customer via that means especially since plenty of phones still can't receive any other form of electronic message.

Twitter has more than ample competition this kind of blackmail would destroy twitter.

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