Scripting News: Twitter Pro?

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

Twitter Pro?

A thread was started by Scoble who suggested, in a phone talk yesterday, that he would pay $10 a month for a Twitter that didn't have the 140 character limit. Seemed like an excellent conversation starter, so I relayed the idea via email to Fred Wilson, cc'd to Scoble.

While I was at breakfast in Palo Alto the two went back and forth, and the idea that always creeps into conversations about Twitter crept into this one. What about SMS? I guess SMS users are limited to 140 characters? Don't know.

After I posted a pic of pumping gas on my way back to Berkeley, Scoble called me on my cell phone, which is beautifully integrated via Bluetooth with my car's sound system (to him it sounded like I was at home, not driving on the freeway), and we discussed many things including this conversation which led me to another sequence of ideas.

1. I wonder if anyone reads my twits on SMS. (I sort of doubt it, many of them have links which would be useless on SMS.)

2. If they do, I don't care if there are parts of my twits that don't translate (after all, they're already living with that).

3. And if I had to check a box saying that my twits wouldn't be available on SMS at all, I'd happily check it. I really only care about the web, and if your cell phone can't do the web, well, get another cell phone. I've always written software for the highest common denominator not the lowest, why should my micro-blogging platform be any different.

After hanging up I wanted to re-iterate -- give me payloads for Twitter so we can go where we need to go. Pictures are a very easy and vital way to express what you're doing right now. And lots of cell phones (like mine) can do nice lo-rez pics. I want payloads.

Update: Fred Wilson himself follows me in SMS. Rex Hammock too.

Last update: Thursday, June 3, 2010; 4:01:47 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.

Sep Nov