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My personal opinion is that Twitter still sticking to 140 characters is stupid. If there is still an argument to be made for emergency services using SMS, I'd l

My personal opinion is that Twitter still sticking to 140 characters is stupid. If there is still an argument to be made for emergency services using SMS, I'd like to counter that they could implement an "emergency mode twitter" that reverts back to 140 characters in case there is an emergency and only in regions concerned by and adjacent to the occurence of said emergency. It's time they bump the character limit up to at least 512 characters.

tedunangst 10y ago
Does twitter want more tweets or better tweets?
- dragonbonheur 10y ago
  Quality over quantity is almost always a more desirable trait. The real question is: Does Twitter want Weibo or Line to eat their lunch and dinner? Maybe it already happened and they're still asleep at the wheel.
  - gnaritas 10y ago
    > Quality over quantity is almost always a more desirable trait. For the reader, but for the creators of content who largely rely on ads, quantity is far more desirable.
brlewis 10y ago
That's my intuition too. I don't think even the makers of twitter expected it to be successful. But in hindsight, since most usage is consumption, the 140-character limit may actually be a killer feature, even though it irritates content producers. People like sound bites.
- mxuribe 10y ago
  I politely disagree. The vast majority of tweets are awful in communicating succinctly - even as sound bites. Most tweeters, when challenged with the 140-character wall, lack enough details.
  - wruza 10y ago
    Not details made twitter. The dark side of people was abused, the need of saying something short and senseless, making comments that have no meaning, that is precious to them by itself. Someone sung a song? Million tweets. Someone mistreated him? Two millions. Cat in the white house? Denial of service. Someone asks complicated questions about our life? Silence. They all want to go buy a thing, take it on and feel important. That's the main reason why twitter, instagram and other bitch-oriented services exist. Main auditory is happy with 140, that's why it is SO popular. Sorry, if I'm somewhat harsh.
harryh 10y ago
This makes sense from the perspective of writers, but I think from the perspective of readers enforcing short tweets makes sense.
anexprogrammer 10y ago
Two things. First emergency services often do use SMS - as it's the last bit of signal to remain usable as they move into marginal areas. Data's first to go, then voice, last texts. Second SMS never was 140 chars - it's 160 char GSM, or 80 Unicode, and every feature phone, from years before Twitter started, happily handled the GSM multipart SMS standard. I forget the limit, but it's at least 10 parts (I think it's much more - 64 or 128 maybe), so 512 char SMS is already done. In 1990-something.

tedunangst 10y ago

Does twitter want more tweets or better tweets?

dragonbonheur 10y ago
Quality over quantity is almost always a more desirable trait. The real question is: Does Twitter want Weibo or Line to eat their lunch and dinner? Maybe it already happened and they're still asleep at the wheel.
- gnaritas 10y ago
  > Quality over quantity is almost always a more desirable trait. For the reader, but for the creators of content who largely rely on ads, quantity is far more desirable.

brlewis 10y ago

That's my intuition too. I don't think even the makers of twitter expected it to be successful. But in hindsight, since most usage is consumption, the 140-character limit may actually be a killer feature, even though it irritates content producers. People like sound bites.

mxuribe 10y ago
I politely disagree. The vast majority of tweets are awful in communicating succinctly - even as sound bites. Most tweeters, when challenged with the 140-character wall, lack enough details.
- wruza 10y ago
  Not details made twitter. The dark side of people was abused, the need of saying something short and senseless, making comments that have no meaning, that is precious to them by itself. Someone sung a song? Million tweets. Someone mistreated him? Two millions. Cat in the white house? Denial of service. Someone asks complicated questions about our life? Silence. They all want to go buy a thing, take it on and feel important. That's the main reason why twitter, instagram and other bitch-oriented services exist. Main auditory is happy with 140, that's why it is SO popular. Sorry, if I'm somewhat harsh.

harryh 10y ago

This makes sense from the perspective of writers, but I think from the perspective of readers enforcing short tweets makes sense.

anexprogrammer 10y ago

Two things. First emergency services often do use SMS - as it's the last bit of signal to remain usable as they move into marginal areas. Data's first to go, then voice, last texts. Second SMS never was 140 chars - it's 160 char GSM, or 80 Unicode, and every feature phone, from years before Twitter started, happily handled the GSM multipart SMS standard. I forget the limit, but it's at least 10 parts (I think it's much more - 64 or 128 maybe), so 512 char SMS is already done. In 1990-something.