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While I personally think that Twitter should not expand to beyond 140 characters I wanted to take a more balanced approach and take a wider look at the issue.

So, is it 140 or bust?

One thing is for certain, something that polarizes opinion can often be good as it generates interest and reopens discussion so that all avenues can be explored. One such thing is the debate over the 140 character limit in Twitter reignited by TweetDecks decision to launch the deck.ly platform.

Naturally, people are asking is it time for Twitter to dispense with the 140 character limit or should the cornerstone of the microblogging service remain sacrosanct?

Twitter was originally designed for use via sms so, allowing for the space taken up by the username, the character limit was a necessity. Things have moved on apace with the service being accessed via the web and host of third party clients. While mobile usage has rocketed only a fraction of that would be in the form of messages sent via SMS.

So, how many use SMS for twitter? I use it for notifications about a couple of accounts I follow and for mentions/dm's but how many still use it for tweeting or consuming tweets? Probably not many in the grand scheme of things but the chances are that those who do aren't using Smartphones or don't have decent data plans such as 'Pay As You Go' customers.

Nothing new

We have had the ability to tweet more than 140 characters for quite some time thanks to services such as TwitLonger but, while its advocates have been calling for its support in just about every third party Twitter client going, the truth is that tweeting more than 140 characters has been viewed largely as a fringe activity despite being supported by many Twitter clients. That is until a major client, TweetDeck, has now decided to launch its own integrated platform for the same ends.

Although TweetDeck (on certain platforms) can natively view items from Deck.ly, the thing all longer tweeting platforms have in common, by necessity, is that the excess characters must be viewed externally from Twitter by following a link as there is no one size fits all solution - fine for those of us on a fixed connection or a smartphone but not for those on a dumbphone who aren't able to follow those links.

Some think it is inevitable that Twitter will have to go beyond the 140 character limit  in order to further evolve and grow but it seems to have been doing a good enough job already with the limitation in place. The argument that "there's no reason for Twitter to be constrained anymore" would cut out a whole section of users in one fell swoop and Twitter have always maintained that retaining SMS support is a priority. The cause is, however, helped when the official Twitter app for iPhone (which used to be Tweetie) includes TwitLonger support.

Options

#newtwitter gave us the right hand pane for the inline viewing of images and videos amongst other things so, as suggested by Dave Winer, the only way to go would be for the likes of TwitLonger and Deck.ly to open up with APIs that allow the longer posts to be consumed elsewhere. This would allow Twitter to display the full tweet in the media pane whilst retaining the short version in the timeline but, as TweetDeck admit, they are competing with Twitter - both the web site and their own apps - so would it be wise to give Twitter direct access to this data, especially as Deck.ly is also viewed as a platform for generating ad revenue?

With the banning of UberTwitter (now UberSocial) and Twidroyd for various policy violations Twitter has shown that it can play hard ball when it comes to policing its service and ecosystem but removing the ability to post tweets longer than 140 characters would upset a lot more people than temporarily blocking a couple of applications. Twitter itself has set a precedent with the continued support for TwitLonger making it harder to remove the functionality without being completely hypocritical.

Compromise

It is not inevitable for Twitter to support long tweets but it may be inevitable for the site to support those tweets should the services that allow their creation open up to the mother ship. Twitter has come a long way from its simple beginnings and at the outset many would not have thought that the ecosystem surrounding it would not have grown to its current size and even those that rebelled against the likes of Twitpic.

Linking to various external media such as images and videos has become the norm and Twitter is supporting it directly within its site and own clients. Linking to text longer than 140 characters can be viewed the same as linking to an image or a blog post. To call for those making tweets longer than 140 characters to "say it elsewhere" is not realistic as anything beyond 140 characters is already external to Twitter.

Denying the ability to link to text longer than Twitters inbuilt limit is unrealistic but what is realistic is for us to realise that Twitter cannot include the ability to natively create long tweets without completely losing its sense of identity.

The joy of Twitter is in its simplicity and this is what resonates with the public. 140 characters forces us to think about what we are saying and there are other places for longer text such as Facebook and blogs. Occasionally, people may want to say just a little extra to their followers without resorting to full blog post but this does not mean that they will be persistently making long tweets on a regular basis.

To be fair to TwitLonger their site even asks you not to "get lazy with Twitter" and if your Tweet runs to 150 characters "you can almost certainly reword it to get it to fit". We just have to be sensible.

Image by tporter

The web is already filled with the recent news that Evan Williams is being replaced by Dick Costolo as CEO of Twitter which could well herald a new era for the self-described news & consumption network. Since his arrival, Costolo has been behind a lot of the current plans to increase revenue and now the target for that new era is to build Twitter into an effective, self sufficient and profitable company.

I suggested last week that those in charge might be too close to the product to really get the best out of the business and it would appear that the powers that be at Twitter feel the same way with Williams now moving on to focus on product strategy leaving Costolo in control of the business side. Costolo has already confirmed that Twitter is not for sale.

Things are changing with the imminent arrival of targeted advertising and promoted accounts but that is no doubt only the beginning; things are bound to go further with the possibility of selling space in #newtwitter's right hand pane - the web version of prime real estate up for auction.

Advertising

Advertising on Twitter is bound to become a lot more prevalent, invasive and unavoidable so it will be interesting to see if this has an impact on the number of users jumping out to third party clients or, perhaps, leaving the service altogether. The client option may not, however, be an entirely safe haven as the likes of promoted tweets are due to be heading in that direction.

If Twitter is to allow targeted advertising based on who you follow then this must be done carefully and correctly so as to avoid any privacy concerns that may arise. Twitter must strive, at all costs, to avoid any comparisons to the controversial Beacon system employed by Facebook. There may not have been a backlash against #newtwitter, mainly because the new design is a genuine improvement, but you can be assured that any suggestion of improper use of the new possibilities providied by the updated site will cause an uproar.

Questions

The question many will now be asking is: how else can Twitter monetise the service?

Other possibilities could include 'wrapper ads' around video media in the right hand pane, a tactic many sites already employ, but it would depend how far they wanted to go. The problem with something like this would be that it removes the immediacy that is inherent in Twitter and so may frustrate users.

Could a 'freemium' model possibly be adopted where users pay a monthly premium for an ad-free version much like that which many forums adopt? While studies may have shown that people would not pay for using Twitter I would suggest that a number could be persuaded to change their minds depending on the amount of advertising they were exposed to and how it impacts their use of the service.

On a daily basis, Twitter continues to become an increasingly important part of online life both from a personal and business perspective and I don't doubt there are many who would be willing to part with a small monthly premium to use the service without distraction.

Whatever the possible options for successfully monetising the service Twitter must tread very carefully or risk alienating the user base. What is patently obvious, however, is that Twitter must be allowed to spread its wings and fly the nest of original ideals when money didn't matter.

Image by Teddy

It has often been pondered when Twitter would sell but it is just as equally a case of when would someone buy and if when then who? Following a number of high profile acquisitions by Google and AOL, amongst others, the topic is firmly back on the menu with the likes of Dave McClure and Henry Blodget reciting the old mantra that it should be Google and the time is now before it's too late.

Twitter has yet to demonstrate a robust, reliable means of revenue generation. Although Dick Costolo has said they are "definitely beyond the experimentation stage" features come and go - early bird deals, for example, weren't a great success and have been put aside for now.

Promoted tweets may be costing up to $100k but many have yet to be convinced that this is the way ahead and caution is urged.

Changes

One thing just about everyone can agree on is that the design of #newtwitter leaves the site open for much better monetisation possibilities due to the new right hand pane but do Twitter themselves really know how to make the most of this? Can developers with pet projects really make effective businessmen? Or are they too close to the product?

The staff at Twitter have always maintained that any advertising on the site would not be invasive and would have to demonstrate effectiveness in order for an particular run to continue. As I wrote back in April:

Twitter expects promoted Tweets to be ‘useful’ – their gauge of this will be if they are shown to resonate with their intended audience, presumably by that audience replying or tweeting. Those tweets that don’t ‘resonate’ will no longer be shown.

Can Twitter find a balance between the need to finance itself and that to keep the site clean and thus avoid annoying its users?

Eric Schmidt thinks Twitter should be able to monetise so what is holding them back? Is it the desire to keep the intrusion to a minimum? When will the economics of running a fast growing company take precedence over technical and design ideals?

Content is king

As mentioned above, it is often suggested that Google should be the company to buy Twitter but, after the announcements surrounding social layers, it would appear contradictory to the direction they are taking in the social space. With 'layers' Google appears to want the social aspect to act as an additional resource to enhance the user experience around the content; it's the content that matters most whereas, with the likes of Facebook and Twitter, it's all about the network.

If we get away from an acquisition for competitive purposes (i.e. to battle Facebook) then timing is everything. Will anyone buy Twitter while it is still in this early stage of revenue generation or will it actually take a buyout - with dedicated, experienced staff on the business side - to make Twitter turn an effective and meaningful profit? Does someone buy into that potential described by Schmidt or do they wait until the coffers start filling?

Time = money

Regardless of your opinion or position, Blodget does have one thing right: the longer anyone goes before putting in an offer for Twitter the more expensive that offer will be and will have to be one that Twitter cannot refuse but at what cost to the network and users?

Image by ecblogger

There have long been calls for a federated Twitter with the likes of Dave Winer leading the way.

Now, following comments from Alex Payne (ex-twitter employee) repeating the call that Twitter (and other networks) should be decentralised, there has been a new focus on why this should happen. Jesse Stay, for example, blogged that the first network to open up "gets the opportunity to lead the pack, and hundreds of millions will follow"

Too late

Perhaps in the early days of social networks this might have been a possiblility, not now. A few years ago when there were no defined business models and networks lived off of Venture Capital there might have been the opportunity for a bold new vision but I feel that it is now too late to change direction. Social networks are like lumbering super tankers resistent to changes in direction. Unfortunately, once they have been set in motion along a particular path it is increasingly difficult to deviate from it.

Being a social network is a business and when you are in business you want people to use your product. Decentralising and allowing users to take their data and social circle elsewhere in its entirety is a frank admission "you don't need us". The networks, on the other hand, need their users and need to excert a degree of control over them for monetisation purposes.

Reports show that around 70% of Twitter traffic is via the website - the new Twitter is obviously a tactic to raise that. With this level of market share Twitter are willing to live with the third party apps as they add some value to the network without too much potential impact on revenue.

Consider, however, if the network was distributed with users jumping out to alternative sites or even self hosting? At what point would Twitter say "enough is enough" as they lose revenue due to a decline in market share within their own network?

Louis Gray <a title="Social Media Experts, Marketers Quake at #newtwitter" href="http://blog.louisgray.com/2010/09/social-media-experts-marketers-egoists.html" target="_blank">posted earlier:

The New Twitter also reduces the options for some services to market themselves. Instead of seeing "From TweetDeck", "From Tweetie for Mac", "From Seesmic for Android" and so on down the line, the New Twitter no longer displays Tweet sources. I assume this is to reduce confusion from new users, and to focus on the content of the tweet instead of its source.

It could equally be a way of reducing the impact of third party tools as the Twitter website aims to be more of a permanent destination without the need to hop out.

Jesse has also recently pointed out that new twitter also removes the link to RSS feeds for streams. I commented at the time that this may simply be because it is an underused feature, Twitter have done the metrics and removed it. It is entirely possible, though, that is has been deliberately pulled to prevent the easy access to the feed from external clients.

Defensive

The networks are going to be protective over their estate and this is perfectly understandable. In order to maximise their returns they are going to want full control and will not be willing to share user base, advertising opportunities etc. Now that the networks have matured they are plugging their own gaps and, as I said before, taking back what they now consider to be rightly theirs.

Social networks may well be heading in the wrong direction as far as advocates of an open web are concerned. Some may feel, perhaps rightly so, that Twitter and other networks need to open up or die but the consequences of doing so could be equally catastrophic.

Social networks are, perhaps, realising that the old ways just don't cut it any more and repurposing is the way ahead; by becoming destinations for more common activities such as news and media consumption they stand a much improved chance of survival.

Image by Jasoon

Since it was announced that Google are building a social layer, and choosing to do things a little differently, into their apps rather than a separate social network there has been criticism and outright rejection of the idea. But, as I have previously said, taking this approach actually makes quite a lot of sense.

TechCrunch reported:

“Google Me will produce an activity stream generated by all Google products. Google Buzz has been rewritten to be the host of it all. And the reason Google Buzz isn’t currently working in Google Apps is because they’ll use the latest Buzz to support the activity stream in Apps…All Google products have been refactored to be part of the activity stream, including Google Docs, etc. They’ll build their social graph around the stream.”

There has been some disappointment to Google taking this direction but it does not need to build a new social network from scratch - it already has one in the form of Google Buzz. It just needs to develop it further. With the rumor that Buzz will form the aggregator for the various social layers it would appear that this development is already on the cards.

Context

Fred Wilson raised the issue of context and likened this approach to FriendFeed. He cites FriendFeed's failure to make a big impression as an indicator that Buzz as an aggregator could fall flat on its face.

He argues that the likes of Twitter have succeeded because of 'social intent' - users visit the site with a specific purpose in mind (a view I touched on a couple of years back) - whereas, FriendFeed failed as there was no specific intent and items appeared out of context.

I replied to his post with the following comment:

"The key difference to FriendFeed here, as I see it, is that each Google product will have its own social layer specifically tied in to that product - the specific social intent as you describe above. If the reports are accurate then activity from each of those social layers is aggregated separately (allegedly in Buzz) - so Buzz is the equivalent of FF where you can access all of the social interactions from the products you use in one location. The fact that each app is social in its own context means that you interact at whichever level you choose. Only use Picasa? Fine just interact there - there is no need to dock with the Buzz mothership. Want to use multilpe products and see what's going on in one central location? Cool - head to Buzz. In my opinion, it offers choice and flexibility."

This layered approach will afford greater flexibility and allow users to choose how they interact socially - there would be no obligation to use Buzz.

Did FriendFeed really fail?

If you look just at the numbers then, perhaps, FriendFeed could be considered to have failed. Adoption rates aren't up there compared to services like Twitter and usage has dropped off significantly. But let's use Fred's argument of context against him: when you consider that FriendFeed was bought lock, stock and barrel by the single biggest player in the social space and many of it's features found their way in to Facebook itself then you have to consider FriendFeed to have been an ultimate success.

One crucial difference between Google Buzz and FriendFeed is that with the latter there was an explicit requirement to go and sign up an account; with Buzz , if you have a GMail account (and presumably an account with any Google application) you will automatically have a Buzz account. Google needs to ensure that Buzz is advertised but not forced down peoples throats.

#newtwitter, Buzz and context

Look at how Buzz currently operates: items shared into the stream are shown in full. Google Reader shares show the full text of the post (on the proviso that the feed itself publishes full text), images and videos are presented inline, etc. By bringing each social object directly into Buzz the context is largely retained. Discussion about a post makes sense as you have the post itself to refer to, Google just has to be careful what content is aggregated and how it is presented.

The new Twitter website is being hailed as a great way to get the most out of discovery on its network. Context is being introduced by showing images, videos and conversation threads right in the site but do we hear concerns that this will break Twitter and remove the social intent? No, we instead hear that it will facilitate easier discussion and discovery and the information is presented all in one place without so much need to leave the network itself.

I ask you, what's the difference?

Image by Scr47chy