Twitter: Moving beyond 140 characters
by Shefali Vyas
Category: Digital Influence, twitter
They say pictures are worth a thousand words, but you only get 140 characters to Tweet it to the world. Just months after a $40 million TweetDeck acquistion, in-the-know tech site, All Things D confirms that Twitter is looking to further expand their offerings and create their own photo-sharing service. Twitter reps are not commenting on the reports, but the social media kings are buzzing with crystal-ball predictions of what the empire’s latest brainchild will look like.
I wanted to add my two cents to the conversation. Currently, users who want to share photos in their tweets have to post them on secondary sights and include links to their photos within tweets. That’s all too time consuming. Let’s cut to the chase. We need those 140 characters to tell everyone just how cute Baby Ali is and include a picture. We can’t just go wasting those precious characters with link space. So, in the spirit of all things twit-tastic, below are my top three photo-sharing sites and what I am looking for in Twitter’s revamp in 140 characters or less.
Twitpic – Share media in real-time. Iphone, email, website platforms using in-site API. CON: Links too lengthy, need more room for text. #nicetry
Yfrog – Served by ImageShack and optimized for mobile viewing. No frills, fast and easy to use. CON: Too many platform bugs make it less reliable. #almostthere
Instagram – Enhances pics with various effects and has seamless social integration on FB, TW, Flickr, Foursquare and Tumblr. CON: Only available for iphones. #Ihaveandroid
What I’m really hoping for in a Twitter platform as an in-house photo-sharing device as clean, quirky, and creative as the namesake’s currently successful products. A hybrid Yfrog, Twitpic, and Instagram will suffice, but I am hoping Twitter will take this opportunity and will go one step further in order to bring us something not even the social media world could have predicted. What are you looking for in the new Twitter photo-sharing service? All Things D reports plans for the platform’s unveiling at the D9 conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., this week. Stay tuned!
11 Responses to “Twitter: Moving beyond 140 characters”
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May 31st, 2011 at 2:50 pm
Nice suggestions, Shefali.
I’d like to see the actual tweet itself become the link to the photo. Maybe a special character is inserted automatically at the start like a [p] or something to make the whole link clickable? Thus, no wasted characters.
Cheers,
John.
@johncarson
May 31st, 2011 at 3:53 pm
Photos are def. one of the reasons to be connected. I like the idea of an easy link–one mark, so to speak. Maybe call it a “thumb-print!” (Or, Twumbprint for those thumbsuckers out there… and gets the “tw” in for the Twitter folks.)
Thumb is a funny word. Say it five times fast!
Cathy
May 31st, 2011 at 3:54 pm
I agree Shefali.
Why wouldn’t the business model of Twitter capture the photo users as well? For that matter why don’t they integrate a Bitly-like URL shortener that would automatically work on any http://www. entry?
With that they could have held out for $1M per character acquisition price!
Great post…
Regards,
Stew
May 31st, 2011 at 5:06 pm
Well said Shefali - like most of the Twitter add-on apps out there, they all fall just a few steps short of doing exactly what we need them to do. If Twitter actually did create something for pics worthy of the original technology, we wouldn’t need 140 characters to say what we wanted, we could just use pics! Ok, maybe that’s pushing it a little but here’s hoping…
May 31st, 2011 at 6:49 pm
Yup, #iagree!
May 31st, 2011 at 7:29 pm
Great post! I recently read a story about ownership rights to Twitpics and how many paparazzi outlets are acquiring those pictures as a cheaper alternative to paying people for their celeb-sightings. So, if you are lucky enough to snap Lindsay getting kicked out of rehab, wait to post until you contact TMZ. Thanks for the insight!
~Julia
June 1st, 2011 at 9:43 am
i am so sick and tired of instagram and how my BEAUTIFUL AND AMAZING android phone is left out of the party. Also it impacts Facebook, Foursquare and Tumblr… all things I like to waste time on.
Instagram jealousy is reason enough for me to be a huge fan of a new twitter photo-sharing service.
I love John Carson’s idea above of making the whole thing clickable… super easy!
June 1st, 2011 at 11:20 am
In many ways Twitter might be losing their identity by moving heavily into the depths of photo-sharing. Their 140-word platform is youthful, simple, and fun. Photo websites come and go like the wind (anybody remember webshots??) and maybe it’s a market best left alone for the people at twitter. Continue out-sourcing the photo sharing and leave the heavy lifting for the more adventurous developers.
June 1st, 2011 at 1:33 pm
I have a Droid too! So unfortunately no Instagram or Viddy, Inc (which I have heard rocks). Sigh. Therefore, I agree with you a hybrid would be nice and way less time consuming!
June 2nd, 2011 at 11:34 am
Hey Shefali!
Great post btw.
I too agree that precious character space is taken up by adding pics, which is truly a shame. What I would like to see happen with Twitter’s new photo sharing service is photo integration on the tweets themselves, something like a preview maybe? Hopefully they can altogether take out the idea of having to click a link to view photos, because it can become a bugger, especially if your internet device isn’t the fastest.
Just saying…
Best,
Ash
June 14th, 2011 at 6:56 pm
Nice blog post! I agree, twitter would become a lot more streamlined and efficient if they introduced a native, in-house, method of sharing pics! Hopefully the pictures appear in the actual tweet and not a link to click on to see the picture.
Thanks for your 2 cents!