On twitter, you are limited to 140 characters per tweet. If your message is too long, there should be a site where you can paste in your text and it will shorten the text down by changing “to” to “2” “and” to “&” “one” to “1” and so on. Then if it’s still not short enough, it’ll take out some of the vowels.
161 characters: (21 too long)
I don’t know about you, but it would be great to have a service to make my long messages be under 140 characters. When I’m writing I use lots of words and words.
136 characters (4 under)
I dunno bout u, but it’d be gr8 2 have a service 2 make my long mssges b under 140 characters. When Im writn I use lots of words & words
I use ping.fm to post to twitter/facebook/xanga/etc. and the same 140 character limit is imposed. As you are typing, the character countdown begins: 140, 139, 138, 137 … -1, -2, -3 … LOL! Since I began using ping.fm I have found myself typically typing longer status messages … trying to use all 140 characters if I was getting close … or re-working messages that were too long in order to meet the 140 character limit. Maybe *I* should be the site people can go to in order to shorten their long-winded status messages. LOL! By the way, is there a character limit imposed here?
start a site that allows 143 characters. then market it to verbose twitter users. post to blog and just use twitter to redirect.
Business-exchange has changed their comment box to a twitter box. If you sync up your Business-exchange account with your Twitter account, your comments on Business-exchange are limited to 140… actually i think they have it to 120 characters. And then your comments appear on your Twitter. It’s a very interesting idea to make the comment box be a Twitter post box. But, I wouldn’t be able to even leave a comment like this. But it certainly does enable Business-exchange to have more promo to their site–if people use this new feature. http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/03/23/business-week-jumps-on-twitter-bandwagon/ (wow, the phrase Business-Exchange is not allowed on my site, because it has the letters s-e-x in it)
Joe — “Verbose Twitter users” LOL! From a writer’s standpoint, the 140-character limit is creating a nation of text speakers who could give a hoot about proper grammar and spelling. I, for one, will not stand for this! Create concise, yet grammatically correct tweets, people! ;D
Why aren’t we making this? Remind me in a week. Maybe I’ll give it a shot.
Crap! Exists! http://tweetshrink.com/about
Check this out: http://txtn.us This site has tools to reduce text without compromising syllables or word structure. It uses special characters like Latin ligatures that look like multiple letters together. I’m not sure if this will paste here in my comment but I’ll try running this paragraph through it. Says it reduced the text by 30 characters. Some look kind of goofy but overall not too bad. This site ㏊s tᅇʪ to redu text without ㏇m㏚omis㏌g syᄔabᇉs or word structure. It ㎲es special c㏊racte₨ like Lat㏌ ligatures t㏊t lᅇk like multipᇉ ᇉtte₨ together. I’m not sure if this wiᄔ ㎩ste here ㏌ my ㏇㎜ent but I’ᄔ try runn㏌g this ㎩ragra㏗ thro㎍h it.