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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

#281

Post by forgetsusername »

potatolicious wrote: post #38

I must be the only one who thinks this is a good idea (not the 10,000-char limit in specific, but something much higher than 140-char). Some of the most interesting ideas I've seen on Twitter were in tweetstorms, which is a pretty nasty and ugly hack itself. Proponents of the 140-char limit usually cite some notion of terseness and thought-density, but I see more half-formed ideas and deliberate grammar/spelling mang…

>I also have a pet theory that Twitter's problems with epic shitstorms/political flamewars stems from the fact that you have people arguing politics/economics/important things with each other in 140 chars or less

I'm pretty sure those arguments and "shit-storms" are occurring everywhere there is written text on the internet, regardless of character limitations.

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

#283

Post by irremediable »

Pxtl wrote: post #282

It sounds more like you'll be able to attach a long-form text document to a tweet just like you can attach a photo. The tweet itself, as presented in the normal view, is still constrained in length.

Yeah, this isn't even that new -- currently people get the same effect by posting images of text. Allowing them to attach text is a logical improvement.

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

#284

Post by Pxtl »

smt88 wrote: post #158
Spivak wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With this addition they will have officially become a user-focused Reddit. It's certainly not a bad thing but I doubt it's where the Twitter devs saw themselves heading. I'm sure people will continue to write 140 character messages but they'll probably become a minority over time. The bulk of tweets will just become title+link to external content or title+discussion starter.

> With this addition they will have officially become a user-focused Reddit. I totally disagree. I still find it impossible to follow threads of conversation on Twitter. I'm a software developer and don't consider myself to be an idiot, either. (Unrelated: I accidentally downvoted you when I was trying to copy-and-paste, and I'm terribly sorry!)

Agreed. Ive been frustrated looking at the tweet at the root of what I know is a long, branching conversation with many participants, unable to see the flow or follow it at all. Slashdot and Kuro5hin solved threaded/nested conversations over a decade ago. How does Twitter still suck at it?

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

#285

Post by mattzito »

jtn_001 wrote: post #279
dangoor wrote: post #33

Other commenters seem to be missing a critical point here: tweets continue to have a 140 character display with some sort of "read more" that you click to see the rest. To me, that actually sounds pretty great. One thing that's nice about Twitter is that it's fairly skimmable. All of those "1/ Some thought", "2/ some thought continued" threads damage that. Combining them into a "My thoughts on... read more" tweet wou…

> One thing that's nice about Twitter is that it's fairly skimmable. All of those "1/ Some thought", "2/ some thought continued" threads damage that. Combining them into a "My thoughts on... read more" tweet would be much nicer. If people want to use twitter in that way than it's not the right place for them, there are already similar platform out there. Twitter's core and unique feature is micro blogging platform an…

> Twitter's core and unique feature is micro blogging platform

Trust me, from many, many discussions with people at Twitter, they absolutely do not see themselves as a micro-blogging platform, and do not enjoy the comparison.

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

#287

Post by ohyes »

Woah, woah, woah! 10,000? If anything tweets are too long! They should reduce the size if anything. 16 characters and a selfie should suffice for all inter human communication.

If we increase the character limit how does it foster innovation in the realm of human to human interaction? I mean, they might as well be old school print media at this point, slightly democratized to allow celebridiots to poorly market themselves and occasionally post something offensive which will create media outrage.

How will news anchors have segments where they "read people's tweets"? We don't have a segment called "Anderson Cooper reads the New York Times." They're direct competitors!

It's crazy! It makes no sense, Twitter has gone too far this time! People will just keep typing their stupid thoughts to fill the tweet up to the stupid limit because they have to be entertaining in long format. I don't have time for that shit!

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

#288

Post by mosburger »

prawn wrote: post #126
dangoor wrote: post #33

Other commenters seem to be missing a critical point here: tweets continue to have a 140 character display with some sort of "read more" that you click to see the rest. To me, that actually sounds pretty great. One thing that's nice about Twitter is that it's fairly skimmable. All of those "1/ Some thought", "2/ some thought continued" threads damage that. Combining them into a "My thoughts on... read more" tweet wou…

One thing I've wanted to see tried with Twitter is the idea that you have your typical stream of tweets (vertical), but that any tweet can have depth (by swiping horizontally). Your "my thoughts" example would indicate "1/8" automatically, updating as it was created. Means that someone can read as usual, or delve for the full series of tweets. They could provide an indication to the writer of what percentage of peopl…

Ugh. Marc Andreesen is the worst with this. I had to stop following him. Twitter is the wrong platform if you want to smear 1500 characters worth of information across multiple tweets.

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

#289

Post by fwn »

bad_user wrote: post #73
Bud wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It forces people to not write a complex English sentence, is what it does. You literally can't express complex thought without multi-tweeting. Which is annoying. There's concision, and then there's nuking the concept of the paragraph. I for one welcome our new longer-Tweet overlords.

The length of your entire message: 285 chars Length of " You can't express complex thought without multi-tweeting ": 56 chars (took " literally " out, because that's incorrect).

I guess there is a subtle joke in using "literally" in a context where it's about the actual amount of letters.

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

#290

Post by SixSigma »

dajohnson89 wrote: post #223
logicallee wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guarantee you that your audience wasn't frustrated by the fact that you had to jump through those hoops. You think all those politicians and celebrities and thought leaders don't have trouble fitting things in 140 characters? I'm not being too verbose, but I've just written 292 here. :)

Agreed. And editing is the hardest (but most important) part of writing.

Hence the old gag:

Sorry this letter is so long, I didn't have much time.

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