9 thoughts on “Impt crtcsm of Twtr. PlzRT!

  1. Todd vdH

    i’m perfectly reasonable! that is high praise :) hey, i always admitted from the get-go that i never quite understood the concept of twitter…more of an experimentation in progress. your patience is appreciated & your commentary always welcome!

    Reply
    1. Fagstein Post author

      The problem isn’t you or anyone else, it’s Twitter itself. The 140-character limit forces people to take shortcuts to save a few characters, and the integrity of text is compromised as a result. The idea that imposing such an arbitrary limit on communication somehow enhances it seems all the more ridiculous as a result.

      Reply
  2. Jim J.

    Maybe the user shouldn’t attempt to cram six (by my count) discreet, more-or-less unrelated bits of information in the Twitter post that was cited as an example.

    Reply
  3. Michelle Sullivan

    For me, the 140 character limit is the beauty of platforms like Twitter and identica. Otherwise, we’d call it a blog.

    Microblogging forces you to communicate succinctly and efficiently .. and .. yes … it’s always good if you do it effectively as well.

    ex: Todd’s tweet could have been split into several messages – not sure why he felt the need to jam everything from Kim Jong-il to True Blood to Montreal politics into a single tweet.

    Montreal journalist Roberto Rocha of the Gazette is among those reaping the rewards of leveraging the power of crowds on Twitter to research stories, find experts etc. I’d encourage Todd to keep experimenting. I suspect he’ll have a lightbulb moment at some point, even if it takes a year to realize Twitter is more than a post-it note .. and I speak from personal experience … or a simple broadcasting platform. I look forward to his Tweets becoming increasingly interactive. Right now they remind me of Michael Ignatieff’s ;)

    Cheers!

    Michelle

    Reply
    1. Fagstein Post author

      You say the 140-character limit “is the beauty” of Twitter, then you say Todd should have written multiple messages about what was coming up on his newscast.

      Why are three 140-character messages inherently better or more beautiful than one 420-character message?

      Reply
  4. tacosburritos

    why write what is coming up in the newscast in a twitter feed anyway, why not just watch the newscast

    Reply
  5. Edna

    Why put a headline on *each* story when we could just have one big summary at the top of a page? Because each tells a different story and deserves its own space.

    The art is in saying what you need to without sacrificing English.

    Reply
  6. Scott in Montreal

    I dislike the recent over-abundance of instant communication. It propagates inaccuracy without enough allowance for proper gatekeeping. It makes all communication that much cheaper.

    Yeah, I think I’ll just wait for the book. Then again, will it still be relevant if a month or two passes before it’s in print? Take me back to the 1940s please.

    Reply

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