Twitter tweeple tweet

Seems like everything I hear, read and see now is connected to Twitter. So I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon and post my tuppence worth.

It was inspired by The Art of the Tweet and the mixed reactions to that blog posting. Rands describes his seeminlgy painstaking thought process that accompanies each of his tweets. Initial drafts get written on a 'canvas' (not quite a physical painting canvas but not your bog-standard web twitter interface, or any of the multitude of twitter apps). Each tweet is then crafted and edited down into a succinct form as possible.

I was going to say as clear a form as possible, but I don't think that's necessarily the case. Reading some of the comments to his post seems to echo my feelings. By stripping away too much of the descriptive text you run the risk of stripping out all context.

BEFORE: If it’s 4am, I know how stressed I am.
AFTER: Stress is how well I know 4am.

Human communication is all about social context and awareness. Striving for elegance and brevity is admirable but if a story can't be adequated told in 6 words, then consider adding a few more.

Final thought, Ernest Hemingway's short story of 6 words:

For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn