As much as I love Twitter, the sad truth is that its strict 140-character limit is both its strength as well as its weakness. The trick is learning when to use twitter and how to use it.
It truly has evolved into its own form of communication with its own unique rules of grammar and spelling. This whole process is called Twitterture, which is the fine art of microblogging on the twitter platform. Think of it as a hybrid language of instant messaging mixed with text messaging.
I think a good way to demonstrate twitterture is by translating a well-known piece of work into twitter-verse. Let’s use Lincoln’s reknown Gettysburg Address.
Lincoln’s “few appropriate remarks” summarized the civil war in 10 sentences and 272 words. It is considered a masterpiece in brevity so what better test for twitter and its ultra brief 140-character limitation. Keep this in mind, Abe Lincoln’s powerful and memorable speech took only two minutes and will be remembered forever. However, Edward Everett gave a two hour long oration before Lincoln and no one ever remembers anything he said! Thus, another victory for Twitter and the beauty of brevity. Yes, sometimes less is more!
TheAbe: 4 score & 7 yrs ago r fathers brght 4th a new nation in liberty. All men created equal. New freedom, govrnmt of/by/4 the people wont perish!
Note: Obviously, shrinking the powerful 272 words of the Gettysburg Address down to 140 characters loses some of its luster and brilliance, but you now get a taste of twitter.
In the real world, Abe Lincoln wouldn’t have used a microblog to share this message. He might have used something like utterz or seesmic.
Here’s the complete original oratory work of art.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.