6 ms·

Totally unreadable. This sums up a lot of what's wrong with Twitter. If even the CEO struggles to communicate effectively using the platform then...

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
criddell 11y ago
Dave Winer mocked up how a fat tweet could look and I think he has it right: http://scripting.com/2015/10/02/whatWouldAFatTweetLookLike.html http://scripting.com/2015/10/02/whatWouldAFatTweetLookLike.h... Obviously, they've thought of this internally too. I wonder what the point of the 140 character limit is today (I think it made sense originally).
- catshirt 11y ago
  "see more" link? groundbreaking stuff. someone get Twitter on the line! i know Dave deserves respect but if i was even a janitor at Twitter this post would piss me off.
  - davewiner 11y ago
    It wasn't written for the janitor at Twitter, rather it was for people outside Twitter who want to think about what might be coming next. Yes, it is obvious. The idea was taken straight out of Facebook. I thought people would benefit from seeing what it would look like in action. As developers it's easy for us to imagine it, but even we need to mock things up to get a look at it, to help think better about it.
    - catshirt 11y ago
      i think my main point is that the display mechanism must be the least of the concerns with respect to introducing > 140 characters. that is to say- I don't believe anyone thinks it's an aesthetic impossibility. it seems fruitless to dictate "how" without being part of the "why and why not" discussions.
  - kibibu 11y ago
    What made me giggle was: > that doesn't force you to click a link to see the rest (includes a link you click to see the rest)
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - nacs 11y ago
      I thought I was missing some fancy rollover-to-show and tried to get the rest to show without clicking the "Read more" link.
    - code_duck 11y ago
      I think he means a link to an external website.
- davewiner 11y ago
  More context. http://scripting.com/2015/10/05/congatsToJack.html http://scripting.com/2015/10/05/congatsToJack.html Dave
  - tacos 11y ago
    20+ years futzing with a blog engine and it still doesn't spell-check headlines, eh?
- jrometty 11y ago
  that looks terrible. my favorite part of tweetstorms is the compartmentalization of ideas and arguments. if a point in the story is 50 chars, its 50 chars with a break point. if its 100, let it be 100. making the story one string feel like reading long text, whereas breaking it down feels more comfortable to me. but this is all subjective, and that website's design is pretty sleek :)
  - mcintyre1994 11y ago
    This is an interesting point - my first thought was isn't this solved with paragraphs, that can obviously be variable lengths? But what about favourites and retweets - I disagree with you that it's easier to read parts as separate tweets than paragraphs would be, but the UI to retweet or favourite a paragraph seems awkward and I think those functions on parts of a tweet storm are important. That also raises the question of whether a paragraph should be restricted to 140 characters (assuming that's the see more limit) so it doesn't create a see more tweet itself when retweeted, not sure whether that matters.
- rco8786 11y ago
  > I wonder what the point of the 140 character limit is today 2 things: 1) Nearly a decade's worth of technical infrastructure built around the assumption that tweets will only ever be 140 characters. 2) A vocal, but shrinking, group of users who are still using Twitter via SMS.
ryandetzel 11y ago
I think it's unreadable to people who don't understand how Twitter works...It reads fine for me.
- untog 11y ago
  I use Twitter every day and tweetstorms like that still seem like an utterly stupid way to work around a limitation in the system.
sgustard 11y ago
Similarly, his CEO announcement at Square was published in a series of micropayments.
tootie 11y ago
The entire concept of Twitter still makes no sense regardless of how many people are using it. It's coasting on momentum at this point and might give out any second.
- calinet6 11y ago
  Their core strength is on the Individual -> Broadcast communication angle. Facebook tried to pick it up, but their mental model is still firmly Individual -> Group & Individual -> Individual. Twitter's "Follow" function being the core method of interaction, and defaulting to public feeds that you can easily interact with is actually fairly different even from a blog or say tumblr, whose core method of interacting is content-first. The balance of power (you can tweet, I can tweet back, I can retweet you, you can retweet me—and they all look the same and have the same weight in the UI) is the main advantage, and if they can play that well then they have a chance.
cdelsolar 11y ago
Totally unreadable? Scrolling down is that difficult?

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

criddell 11y ago

Dave Winer mocked up how a fat tweet could look and I think he has it right: http://scripting.com/2015/10/02/whatWouldAFatTweetLookLike.html http://scripting.com/2015/10/02/whatWouldAFatTweetLookLike.h... Obviously, they've thought of this internally too. I wonder what the point of the 140 character limit is today (I think it made sense originally).

catshirt 11y ago
"see more" link? groundbreaking stuff. someone get Twitter on the line! i know Dave deserves respect but if i was even a janitor at Twitter this post would piss me off.
- davewiner 11y ago
  It wasn't written for the janitor at Twitter, rather it was for people outside Twitter who want to think about what might be coming next. Yes, it is obvious. The idea was taken straight out of Facebook. I thought people would benefit from seeing what it would look like in action. As developers it's easy for us to imagine it, but even we need to mock things up to get a look at it, to help think better about it.
  - catshirt 11y ago
    i think my main point is that the display mechanism must be the least of the concerns with respect to introducing > 140 characters. that is to say- I don't believe anyone thinks it's an aesthetic impossibility. it seems fruitless to dictate "how" without being part of the "why and why not" discussions.
- kibibu 11y ago
  What made me giggle was: > that doesn't force you to click a link to see the rest (includes a link you click to see the rest)
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - nacs 11y ago
    I thought I was missing some fancy rollover-to-show and tried to get the rest to show without clicking the "Read more" link.
  - code_duck 11y ago
    I think he means a link to an external website.
davewiner 11y ago
More context. http://scripting.com/2015/10/05/congatsToJack.html http://scripting.com/2015/10/05/congatsToJack.html Dave
- tacos 11y ago
  20+ years futzing with a blog engine and it still doesn't spell-check headlines, eh?
jrometty 11y ago
that looks terrible. my favorite part of tweetstorms is the compartmentalization of ideas and arguments. if a point in the story is 50 chars, its 50 chars with a break point. if its 100, let it be 100. making the story one string feel like reading long text, whereas breaking it down feels more comfortable to me. but this is all subjective, and that website's design is pretty sleek :)
- mcintyre1994 11y ago
  This is an interesting point - my first thought was isn't this solved with paragraphs, that can obviously be variable lengths? But what about favourites and retweets - I disagree with you that it's easier to read parts as separate tweets than paragraphs would be, but the UI to retweet or favourite a paragraph seems awkward and I think those functions on parts of a tweet storm are important. That also raises the question of whether a paragraph should be restricted to 140 characters (assuming that's the see more limit) so it doesn't create a see more tweet itself when retweeted, not sure whether that matters.
rco8786 11y ago
> I wonder what the point of the 140 character limit is today 2 things: 1) Nearly a decade's worth of technical infrastructure built around the assumption that tweets will only ever be 140 characters. 2) A vocal, but shrinking, group of users who are still using Twitter via SMS.

ryandetzel 11y ago

I think it's unreadable to people who don't understand how Twitter works...It reads fine for me.

untog 11y ago
I use Twitter every day and tweetstorms like that still seem like an utterly stupid way to work around a limitation in the system.

sgustard 11y ago

Similarly, his CEO announcement at Square was published in a series of micropayments.

tootie 11y ago

The entire concept of Twitter still makes no sense regardless of how many people are using it. It's coasting on momentum at this point and might give out any second.

calinet6 11y ago
Their core strength is on the Individual -> Broadcast communication angle. Facebook tried to pick it up, but their mental model is still firmly Individual -> Group & Individual -> Individual. Twitter's "Follow" function being the core method of interaction, and defaulting to public feeds that you can easily interact with is actually fairly different even from a blog or say tumblr, whose core method of interacting is content-first. The balance of power (you can tweet, I can tweet back, I can retweet you, you can retweet me—and they all look the same and have the same weight in the UI) is the main advantage, and if they can play that well then they have a chance.

cdelsolar 11y ago

Totally unreadable? Scrolling down is that difficult?