I think what he meant, is twitter does not have an embedded link shorterner on the site but only if content is submitted via external links. Like HootSuite when submitting to FB or Twitter you can shorten a link while submitting the content. That would be a very welcomed feature for twitter in the long run.
Ah, I see. Yeah, I agree; I'd like to see t.co better integrated into the normal web UI, not just the link-sharing interface (twitter.com/share?url=...).
The maximum length should be 160 characters, not 140. When SMS was developed, research was done to show that 160 characters provided enough space to communicate most short messages [1]. Less characters were shown to be too tight. Unfortunately, Twitter, built on top of SMS, had to clip 20 characters for the username.
Of course, that's just for short text messages. Maybe embedding in hyperlinks, pictures, music, and video doesn't need the same constraints.
Twitter without a short character limit would become something else entirely. "Microblogging" has "micro" in the name for a reason. Without the 140-character limit, it would just become "blogging", and plenty of services exist for that. Microblogging offers an interesting niche, which tends to get used for short messages that often include a URL.
Given that eliminating the limit entirely seems like the wrong answer, I also don't think it makes sense to extend the 140 character limit to something marginally longer; that just seems like pointless churn that would break the expectations of various tools that interact with Twitter and other microblogging services.
10 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 27.8 ms ] thread*Maximum length for the links so that users don't abuse it.
I think 140 characters is a bit short for English, but I do not think that 280 characters would give us better content in the long run either.
Extending the limit would just make people sloppy.
Of course, that's just for short text messages. Maybe embedding in hyperlinks, pictures, music, and video doesn't need the same constraints.
[1] http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/05/invented-...
Given that eliminating the limit entirely seems like the wrong answer, I also don't think it makes sense to extend the 140 character limit to something marginally longer; that just seems like pointless churn that would break the expectations of various tools that interact with Twitter and other microblogging services.