Scripting News: Twitter meets podcasting?

Scripting News, the weblog started in 1997 that bootstrapped the blogging revolution.

Twitter meets podcasting?

The other day I was thinking about other kinds of Twitters. The thing we like about Twitter is that you can't post a book-length story about what's going on right now, you can only do a 140-character synopsis -- "I just got on BART" or "Driving to NoobCamp." It's one of those Worse Is Better or Less Is More things we like so much about the Internet. So I started making a list of different kinds of Twitter, and immediately gravitated to something I call TwitterGram, where you use the 140 characters to link to a 200K audio message. Think of it as Twitter meets podcasting.

So I created one these messages. Click on the link below to listen to it.

http://twittergram.com/dave/audiogram001.mp3

I linked to this message from my Twitter acct.

If you want to play the game, record a response, no more than 200K, upload it somewhere, and link to it from your Twitter account, and put @davewiner somewhere in the text of the twit (so I will see it). Of course I'll be surprised if anyone actually responds, but what the heck, maybe people will.

I have a funny feeling Chris Pirillo will like this. ";->"

Tom Morris responded! Yehi!!

My response to Tom's twittergram. ";->"

George Ellenberg says it's a great idea, but not practical because it's too much work.

My response to George is basically, yes, but if it's fun and people like it, it can be made easy.

Tom Morris suggests a URL scheme for TG's.

Twittergram #4. In the first few hours of brainstorming you don't have to deal with every issue every person might raise. Sometimes it's better just to suspend criticism, you don't even know if the idea of the moment is what you're going to implement. There's always someone who says you can't do it. Amazing how many of the big ideas of the Internet had to go through the objections of people who thought it couldn't work.

Amyloo stays well within the 200K limit. Thanks!

This is kind of like the Dixie podcast we did in 2005. ";->"

Twittergram #5. I'm going out for a bit, but when I get back I'll put up a web service that takes care of a bunch of the details of doing Twittergrams. Not all of them, but a lot. You'll need to have software on the desktop that can record an MP3, and that can send an XML-RPC or REST message to a server. You'll get back a URL, but you won't really need it, because it'll also take care of posting the MP3 to Twitter. And it'll probably also generate an RSS feed (it would be kind of ridiculous if I didn't do that too, as far as I know Twitter doesn't understand enclosures, and this app begs for them).

Last update: Thursday, June 3, 2010; 4:00:57 PM

~About the Author~

Dave Winer, 55, is a visiting scholar at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He pioneered the development of weblogs, syndication (RSS), podcasting, outlining, and web content management software; former contributing editor at Wired Magazine, research fellow at Harvard Law School, entrepreneur, and investor in web media companies. A native New Yorker, he received a Master's in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin, a Bachelor's in Mathematics from Tulane University and currently lives in New York City.

"The protoblogger." - NY Times.

"The father of modern-day content distribution." - PC World.

One of BusinessWeek's 25 Most Influential People on the Web.

"Helped popularize blogging, podcasting and RSS." - Time.

"The father of blogging and RSS." - BBC.

"RSS was born in 1997 out of the confluence of Dave Winer's 'Really Simple Syndication' technology, used to push out blog updates, and Netscape's 'Rich Site Summary', which allowed users to create custom Netscape home pages with regularly updated data flows." - Tim O'Reilly.

Mail: scriptingnews1mail at gmail dot com.

May Jul