Elizabeth Phillips on Twitter
140 characters. That’s what the world is coming to. Say what you gotta say in 140 characters (including punctuations, links, etc.) or less and get out.
I keep hearing on the news that people are blogging less and reading less–thanks in part to the rise of Twitter. Twits are announcing they’re running for governor in California. They’re telling you about exclusive deals. They’re telling you about their adventures, dreams, rants, and discoveries. But in the absolute most concise way. And this has some people scared.
We are becoming a character count society. Google search ads only let you write 25 character headlines and two lines of body copy that are 35 characters each. Yahoo search ads let you write 25 character headlines and body copy with 70 characters. And now with the hugely successful Twitter growing bigger and bigger every day, you have to wonder why are we being limited to character counts and why are we okay with it?
Are we becoming lazy? Is our attention really that freaking small? Can we not handle reading a paragraph?
I’m a digital copywriter and I’m finding that Twitter and the likes are challenging and changing best practicing for writing web content. Bullet points, scanable content, and short bite-size paragraphs were the norm. Is this no longer the case? Will marketers begin creating microsites with just 140 characters of count per page?
I don’t know, it just makes me wonder. Follow me on Twitter!
euphoria meets holy crap meets badass 
Hi there.
I agree with you on this. I understand the appeal of the simplicity and ease of use of the medium, but am boggled by the massive growth of twitter.
As a teen my dad would always refer to me as a twit when he thought I was being an idiot. Now twitter has recruited a massive army of twits. I bet my dad would not approve.