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Twitter to Stop Counting Photos and Links in 140-Character Limit

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Re: Twitter to Stop Counting Photos and Links in 140-Character Limit

#121

Post by mitchell209 »

wodenokoto wrote: post #19
ldong wrote: post #4

The beauty of twitter is to tweet with concise messages. I'd be disappointed if this 140 characters restriction got removed.

that beauty has turned tweets into incomprehensible multitweets and images of text. what i don't understand is why they haven't built long-form notes that can be inserted into a tweet, just like images can be inserted.

I expected them to display the first 140 characters or so then have longer content expand upon tapping into the tweet once they started introducing those cards into the tweets.

Re: Twitter to Stop Counting Photos and Links in 140-Character Limit

#122

Post by danso »

mgiannopoulos wrote: post #70
krschultz wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit seems much harder to implement. This basically adds some metadata to the Tweet model instead of embedding it within the body text. That's a change and it needs to be implemented all over, but it is pretty backwards compatible. It seems that one of the fundamental assumptions is that Tweets are immutable. Changing that could break all kinds of things and would probably their systems significantly more complicated…

Even Facebook has an edit feature for a long time now with a revision history of posts/comments. No issues of abuse. This isn't rocket science.

Facebook posts aren't as public-facing by default. AFAIK there's no FB equivalent to the retweet, in that the content of a FB share is not quite the same as the relation between a retweet and the original tweet.

Re: Twitter to Stop Counting Photos and Links in 140-Character Limit

#123

Post by muddi900 »

chris_wot wrote: post #69
mattl wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microblog, but sure..

Whilst Twitter has someone tweet the occasional gem, it's genuinely few and far between. I honestly feel that the format was great when it was only really programmers who used it (and even then I'm not so sure...) but limiting people to 140 characters, even discounting images and links, means most people can't convey views on most complex issues. I have an unpopular view, but I'm firmly of the belief that all Twitter…

Isn't that most if the mainstream Internet in the English language? I mean why is your aunt on Instagram? Why is your dad using Snapchat?

What value do these services have 90% of their users but provide a throughline to celebrities?

Re: Twitter to Stop Counting Photos and Links in 140-Character Limit

#124

Post by Sniffnoy »

djsumdog wrote: post #33
ComputerGuru wrote: post #31

What I find stupid is that the length of usernames counts in the message. A message to @myfriend can be longer than a message to @myfriendblessednaycursedwithalongername

It made sense during the time period it came about. You have 160 characters for an SMS. 140 allows 20 characters for @names, commands, etc. When my friends and I first started using Twitter, we basically used it as a group chat, similar to Hangouts/FB today.

My understanding is that actually there is no extra 20, it's precisely the length of an SMS. SMS is 160 characters, yes -- but in a 7-bit encoding (which is actually transmitted as a 7-bit encoding, not padded to octets like ASCII). That makes 140 bytes, which is what Twitter allows (or presumably originally allowed; I guess now longer characters still only count for 1 rather than multiple).

Re: Twitter to Stop Counting Photos and Links in 140-Character Limit

#125

Post by arielm »

downandout wrote: post #98
askafriend wrote: post #11

The fact that it took this long for them to make such an obvious change speaks to how afraid they are (were?) to challenge core assumptions about the product.

Imo, it shows that, like many of us, they don't really understand why Twitter became so popular. That being the case, they don't know what they can and cannot safely change.

I think looking at it this way is a bit naive. While I agree that "attachments" shouldn't take up tweet text, the 140 character limit is a core component of the service. Call it a micro blog or a mass SMS, Twitter is 140 characters.

That said, I think most comments are missing the point - having attachments not take up characters really won't make the service any more useful to the mainstream... That's the real problem in my opinion.

Re: Twitter to Stop Counting Photos and Links in 140-Character Limit

#127

Post by jonny_eh »

greggman wrote: post #106
ComputerGuru wrote: post #31

What I find stupid is that the length of usernames counts in the message. A message to @myfriend can be longer than a message to @myfriendblessednaycursedwithalongername

@Im @guessing @its @because @you @could @get @around @the @message @size @limits @if @at @marks @did @not @count @against @your @total @size?

How about only discounting the first one, and only if it's a legit name?

Re: Twitter to Stop Counting Photos and Links in 140-Character Limit

#128

Post by chris_wot »

imron wrote: post #113
chris_wot wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the best strategy for avoiding harassment? I have a Twitter account, but very, very rarely use it. It's my biggest concern really. Knowing strategies to avoid just nasty people is the main issue I have with it. Like, if you go into Twitter and see that you have a whole bunch of Gamer Gayers targeting you (just an example, I can't see how I would be a target!) then I'd imagine having no Twitter would be prefera…

> Knowing strategies to avoid just nasty people Perhaps refrain from using childish insults like Gamer Gayers . Like attracts like.

Yow! That is fully an iPhone spelling fail. That was not in any way intended. Sorry about that!

Re: Twitter to Stop Counting Photos and Links in 140-Character Limit

#129

Post by caseysoftware »

tacone wrote: post #71
buro9 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit!

That's a recipe for disaster. You don't edit SMS, why should you be able to edit tweets?

I can see the use case if it's a extremely short edit window.. something like 30-60s, basically to catch that stupid typo. That doesn't solve the abuse angles but it gives a much smaller opportunity for it to happen.

Short of [mega star], few tweets see much favoriting/RTing in that window.

Re: Twitter to Stop Counting Photos and Links in 140-Character Limit

#130

Post by PKop »

chris_wot wrote: post #102
gregmac wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely twitter is entirely about who you follow. I tried it out early on, saw no value, and ignored it for a year or two, until a friend convinced me it has some value, and there are two uses I find. I follow several programmers (some internet famous, some merely who I've found from using a project they worked on or someone else's retweet), and through that, find it interesting to get a glimpse at what other peop…

What's the best strategy for avoiding harassment? I have a Twitter account, but very, very rarely use it. It's my biggest concern really. Knowing strategies to avoid just nasty people is the main issue I have with it. Like, if you go into Twitter and see that you have a whole bunch of Gamer Gayers targeting you (just an example, I can't see how I would be a target!) then I'd imagine having no Twitter would be prefera…

If some random person is harassing you, just block them. It's really simple. They can't see your tweets, and you won't see theirs.
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