China’s version of Twitter, Sina Weibo, also plans to expand its messages’ capacity from 140 characters to 2,000. Unlike its American counterpart that’s still thinking about it, though, Weibo’s already made up its mind. The microblogging service will launch its expanded messages on January 28th to a small group of beta testers. Everyone else — that is, all 500 million users — will be able to post long letters/thoughts/diatribes by February 28th.

A Weibo spokesperson told South China Morning Post that only 10 percent of posts on the social network exceed 120 Chinese characters. Not to mention, those posts undergo the same government censorship filter other websites in the region go through — you can’t really post a 2,000-character rant against the government on Weibo. Even so, the company’s expanding the text limit anyway “to offer greater choice and a better user experience.”

[Image credit: bfishadow/Flickr]

Source: South China Morning Post

Source : http://ift.tt/20gp6J5

News: Twitter To Extend Tweets to 10,000 Characters

Twitter will be making a change to the way their users tweet this Spring with a new update. Members will no longer have the restrained of 140-characters per tweet but will soon be able to extend them to 10,000 characters just like the Direct Message feature.

The design aspect is key. Making Tweets bigger by adding more content or bigger pictures has diminished user engagement in the past,…

According to a report from Re/Code, Twitter’s top brass is considering dropping its 140-character limit in lieu of a 10,000-character cap. The so-called “Beyond 140” project, as Re/Code’s sources call it, would allow people tweet with the same freedom as their Direct Messages. As the sources describe it, tweets would still only display 140 characters in your timeline but then expand to display the additional text once the user clicks on it. This functionality is currently in testing, though there’s no word on release date yet and there’s no guarantee that the final character limit could change before it debuts.

Source: Re/Code

Source : http://ift.tt/1PL92Mq

 No, you’re not going to have article-length tweets overwhelming your timeline, but Twitter is looking to let you write more without leaving the service. The company is mulling a new option that would let you write up to 10,000 characters, but only show the first 140 in the timeline with a button to reveal the rest. Re/Code reports the feature might launch in late Q1. Read More

Source : http://ift.tt/1UtZ417

(by Brian Triplett Spokane Examiner)

People who like using Twitter and Facebook will probably love a new social networking site called Chime.in.

Chime.in is the latest creation of UberMedia, a company that has created social media apps that are being used by over five million people.

  According to Tomio Geron of Forbes, "Start-up UberMedia has been known as the largest independent app developer on the Twitter platform–and is known for driving the most Twitter traffic outside of Twitter itself.

  "... UberMedia is launching its own micro-messaging platform called Chime.in, with essentially all the features that Twitter would not let it build on its platform. The Chime service, however, is not designed to be a social network to compete directly with Twitter, says UberMedia CEO Bill Gross. Instead Gross calls Chime an 'interest network.'"

  Imagine Twitter, only with much longer tweets, more pictures and videos and the ability to "like" people's content in a manner that may remind users of Digg and StumbleUpon.

  According to Ben Parr of Mashable, "Users are allowed to write short articles on Chime.in — up to 4,000 characters. A chime displays a headline, the first few sentences of a chime, a piece of multimedia (an image, a video, etc.), a profile picture, interest tags and options for liking, commenting and sharing. Chimes included threaded comments that include a Reddit-style up or downvote system for surfacing the best comments to the top of a chime."

  Chime.in allows people to prioritize what they see from the people they follow in ways that aren't available yet from Twitter.

  "Chime addresses two problems with Twitter and other social networks, Gross says. First, the problem of relevance; that is, following people and getting random Tweets about things you’re not interested in. There’s no filter. There are also people you’re interested in following for their messages on one topic, say technology, but not another topic, such as what they ate for breakfast. With Chime, you can follow particular interests or communities, which are like online groups or forums. Also you can follow people, but choose to only get their Chimes on a particular topic (say only updates from Bob on ‘semiconductors,’ but not ‘dogs’)," Geron said.

  Harry McCracken of CNET pointed out some other benefits of using Chime.in.

  "Chime.in feels quite a bit like a beefier Twitter, with hints of Facebook and Google+, but it's not a mere clone of anything else out there. Two features give it a distinct personality:

  "1. Instead of being organized principally around people, the site is about subjects--any subject that can attract a quorum of folks who like to discuss it online, such as news, tech, hobbies, and sports. The discussions are made up of "Chimes"--wordier equivalents of tweets that can include links, videos, polls, and up to four photos. Chime.in automatically organizes them into "Chimeline" streams based on the topics they discuss, and users--including companies--can create communities on any subject.

  "2. If you create a community, you can stick ads on it--such as Google AdSense ones--and keep all the money you make. Or you can let Chime.in populate it with advertising and give you a portion of the proceeds. Either way, it's a strikingly different proposition than other social networks, which put ads next to the stuff you create without cutting you in," McCracken said.