Skip to content

Cubicgarden.com…

Thoughts and ideas of a dyslexic designer/developer

Cubicgarden.com…

What should the character limit be on microblogging?

Evan Prodromou who I finally met at FOSDEM recently, has been running a poll to find out whats the best character limit for microblogging.

For our flagship site, Identi.ca, which runs on the status.net cloud service and uses the 0.9.0 beta, we’d like to open up the discussion of what an appropriate character limit should be. Setting a site-wide limit is a community decision we’d like to leave in the community’s hands. In a conversation on Identi.ca we’ve solicited some candidate character limits that we’d like people to decide on.

  • 140 is compatible with Twitter; in many languages a notice with 140 characters fits into a single SMS message*
  • 280 can fit into two Twitter or SMS messages
  • 300 is a fan favorite
  • 420 is Facebook’s status limit and 3 Twitter tweets or SMS messages
  • 500 is a little bigger
  • 1000 is bigger than that
  • Unlimited
  • Other

So personally I think 300 is enough. 300 will hold a very long URI with room for query string values. Also having it about the size of two text messages seems about right. If you stick to ANSI only characters you usually get about 306 characters to text with (160+160 with overhead) on most phones. Unicode drops it down to 280 characters which still seems fairly close to 300. I’m also thinking 300 characters keeps things micro readable still.

The idea of a more structured microblogging with URIs as metadata in interesting but I think metadata should be inline and in plain view. Its one of the neat things about Microblogging, which would be a shame to remove. Also got to say anything more complex than the current microblogging setup would maybe cause too many problems with backwards compatible. Literate results are good, if you want metadata use blogging instead.

Share this post:

  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)

Related

Author: Ianforrester

Senior firestarter at BBC R&D, emergent technology expert and serial social geek event organiser. View all posts by Ianforrester

Author IanforresterPosted on February 14, 2010Categories socialware-onlineTags blogging, identica, metadata, microblogging, statusnet

Post navigation

Previous Previous post: Forget Scalextrics its all about the K’nex Roller Coasters
Next Next post: Orange Valentine day let down

About me

Ian Forrester

Ian Forrester

Senior "Firestarter" Producer at BBC RD, emergent technology expert and serial Manchester social geek event organiser.

Personal Links

  • Cubicgarden.com...
  • Trakt.TV profile
  • Twitter Cubicgarden
  • Ian Twitter
  • My presentations
  • PixelFed

View Full Profile →

Archives

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Ianforrester

  • Manchester
  • githubGitHub
  • twitterTwitter
  • facebookFacebook
  • microblogMicro.blog
  • flickrFlickr
  • mastodonMastodon
  • youtube.comYouTube
  • linkedin.comLinkedIn
  • slideshare.netSlideShare
  • goodreads.comGoodreads
  • getpocket.comPocket
  • appear.in
  • airbnb.co.uk
  • libre.fm
  • trakt.tvTrakt
  • mastodon.cloudMastodon
  • scholar.social
  • keyserver.ubuntu.comUbuntu

Senior firestarter at BBC R&D, emergent technology expert and serial social geek event organiser.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
February 2010
M T W T F S S
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
« Jan   Mar »

Categories

  • aggregator (11)
  • culture-and-politics (702)
  • design-and-ideas (610)
  • home entertainment (88)
  • italic+mixing (189)
  • just-plain-life (707)
    • gratitude diary (34)
  • media-and-expression (441)
  • play-and-games (53)
  • science+theory (42)
  • social-hardware (528)
    • socialware-offline (253)
    • socialware-online (225)
  • technology (624)
    • home entertainment (13)
    • mobile-technology (300)
    • technology-and-computing (205)
  • Uncategorized (190)
  • xml and web 2.0 (391)
    • data-and-semantic-web (166)

Pages

  • About
  • Bookmarks
  • Contact me
  • Gadgets
  • Gratitude diary
  • Manchester Map
  • Microblogging
  • Mixes
  • Photos
  • Professional networking
  • Social media
  • Socialise
  • Subscriptions
  • Visual media

Recent Posts

  • Diabolo poses captured May 25, 2022
  • The excesses of Berlin’s club culture? May 23, 2022
  • WebMix: Webmonetization + Dj mixes for the next internet May 23, 2022
  • Covid: It was bound to happen May 17, 2022
  • Mozilla/BBC Ethical Dilemma Cafe Manchester May 8, 2022
  • Go watch: Everything, Everywhere, All At Once May 5, 2022
  • Public Service Internet monthly newsletter (May 2022) May 2, 2022
  • What do you value most in a friendship? May 1, 2022
  • Is BeReal as ethical as it says? April 30, 2022
  • Its going to be a busy few weeks again April 23, 2022
  • Public Service Internet monthly newsletter (April 2022) April 1, 2022
  • Mozilla/BBC Ethical Dilemma Cafe Manchester opens 26-27th April (tickets are available now!) March 30, 2022

Recent Comments

  • Ianforrester on Covid: It was bound to happen
  • cubicgarden on Public Service Internet monthly newsletter (May 2022)
  • coldclimate on Public Service Internet monthly newsletter (May 2022)
  • Ianforrester on Mozilla/BBC Ethical Dilemma Cafe Manchester opens 26-27th April (tickets are available now!)
  • Ianforrester on Mozilla/BBC Ethical Dilemma Cafe Manchester opens 26-27th April (tickets are available now!)
  • Ianforrester on The incidental contact high mix
  • Ianforrester on The Grand Mozilla Festival Web Monetization Experiment is go
  • Brian Butterworth on A rallying calling for distributed rather than decentralised
  • Digital Italic on The incidental contact high mix
  • Ianforrester on Trying out duck duck go’s app tracking protection

Tip jar

Found something useful? Feel free to tip me if you like...

  • Tip me with Monzo
  • Donate bitcoins
  • Tip me on Paypal

Tags

  • #Blacklivesmatter
  • android
  • apple
  • bbc
  • blacklivesmatter
  • conference
  • covid19
  • dance
  • data
  • date
  • dating
  • diabolo
  • dj
  • facebook
  • film
  • geek
  • geekdinner
  • google
  • internet
  • life
  • london
  • love
  • manchester
  • media
  • mix
  • mobile
  • mozfest
  • mozilla
  • music
  • okcupid
  • onlinedating
  • pacemaker
  • pacemakerdevice
  • perceptivemedia
  • podcast
  • science
  • sex
  • social
  • trance
  • tv
  • twitter
  • ubuntu
  • uk
  • video
  • xbmc

About me

I can be found microblogging on Twitter, Mastodon.cloud, Mastodon Scholar.social I upload media to Flickr, Pixelfed, You Tube, Mixcloud and Slideshare I generate metadata on Trakt TV and Diigo. Network professionally at Linkedin, use keybase, write code on github and dabble more socially on Facebook
  • githubGitHub
  • twitterTwitter
  • facebookFacebook
  • microblogMicro.blog
  • flickrFlickr
  • mastodonMastodon
  • youtube.comYouTube
  • linkedin.comLinkedIn
  • slideshare.netSlideShare
  • goodreads.comGoodreads
  • getpocket.comPocket
  • appear.in
  • airbnb.co.uk
  • libre.fm
  • trakt.tvTrakt
  • mastodon.cloudMastodon
  • scholar.social
  • keyserver.ubuntu.comUbuntu

Green status

This website is hosted Green - checked by thegreenwebfoundation.org

Spam Blocked

109,350 spam blocked by Akismet
Cubicgarden.com… Proudly powered by WordPress
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.