140 characters

Yes, can you explain something in just 140 characters including all spaces and punctuation and actually get what you are trying to say out. (140 characters)

 

This is one of the biggest conversations that seems to happen with people when they get onto Twitter. Is it easy to express yourself in that few characters and such? I think it really depends on what you are trying to say. I have noticed that now when people have more to say than can fit in one tweet you all of a sudden start seeing 1of3 or 1of4. Now when you have to do that many tweets to get your message across maybe it’s time to rethink what you are saying and also who your audience is.

What twitter has done is actually help people to get their thoughts out quickly and clearly. When you only have a certain number of characters it means that you are going to be very focused on what you are saying. I like the idea of only 140 characters because it is quite easy to read these and if I need to read more a lot of people are putting tiny url’s in the tweet so that you can go and find out more information. Twitter should be the means of getting the quick thoughts out and announcements and then more information can be found on a website.

Besides people doing multiple tweets to communicate their entire thought you get the multiple abbreviations. Some of the abbreviations are easy to figure out and then there are the ones that make you think.

Here are some confusing things:

• N/B on S/B shoulder (this took a bit of thinking and close reading to understand that someone was walking northbound on the southbound shoulder of the highway)
• FGX – Frederick G Gardiner Expressway – most people know it as “The Gardiner Expressway” or simply “The Gardiner”

For me Twitter is a means of finding out quick bits of information. If I need more information I can go to website and especially the news sites for the information that I am looking for. Twitter for me, is basically something that I use to find out about issues with the traffic and transit around the city. For me, it is also a great way keeping up-to-date on the latest news happens. I may look like I follow a lot of people but a lot of who I follow are media and security/police related.

140 characters doesn’t seem like a lot of characters when you first start thinking about it but you say alot in that number of characters. (138 characters)