I think Twitter introducing the ability to tweet anything up to, 10000 characters will be a good thing.

For starters it streamlines the tweet/blog combo (if you should wish it). A lot of peeps on my feed, being writers and critics and such, have all, almost in union, quipped ‘Yeah, we call it a blog. Got one thanks’. Thing is, blogs come with their career territory. Most people wouldn’t usually bother with a blog. The effort of creating and updating one far outstrips the urge and frequency most people have to opine at length on something.

But everyone has three, four, perhaps ten great long blog posts in them (they’re just behind the novel inside them if you have a root around). And you never know when the urge will strike.

For these people, why bother messing about with separate blogs? Especially if you’re not interested in all the extra bits WordPress etc offer.

A lot of Twitter users are asking why extend the character limit when the real problem Twitter is facing is aggression. Good point.

I’d argue the extended character limit IS an answer to the culture of aggression. Not THE answer (there’s rarely a single answer to anything), but a start. 

People can explain themselves better in an extended environment. They have more room for context and qualifiers. Of course it’ll do nothing to limit the harassers (save they won’t be able to twist other’s words quite so well) but what it will do is allow those of moderately different viewpoints to get a better handle on the other’s intentions. Architecture effects temperament. Just ask the residents of Highrise’s Royal Towers.

I think it’ll look good too, once the inevitable teething problems are sorted. Apparently a ‘super tweet’ will display the first 140 characters then, when you click on it, it’ll display the whole. I think that’ll being out a lot of user creativity, with the first 140 c much like a headline article (which regular tweets already kind of are, except without the article following it). Perhaps the first 140 could suggest one thing and the remainder, once clicked upon, will defy whatever expectations the ‘headline’ generated. Look, you guys are brighter than me, you can do a lot of crazy-neat stuff with this proposed set up.

And if you don’t wanna super-tweet? Don’t super-tweet. Nothing’s been taken from you.

So, yeah, I’m for it. Bring it on.