It is apparent on this blog recently that the posts are becoming shorter. I think Twitter may be at the root of this issue: as I’ve become used to it’s 140-character format (including 140-character poems that I call Tweeku), I think I’ve adopted a blogging style that is more compact. And it’s not just Twitter to blame.

Facebook offers the writer a single line: you can type more if you want to, but somehow, you feel like it’s wrong. Ditto with Friendfeed: you can type more, but most don’t, so long posts look like you’re overreaching, especially when displayed next to everybody else’s short offerings.

Indeed, even on email, especially when I’m writing to those with whom I frequently correspond, I don’t bother with the formalities that came over from the paper letter. I early on abandoned the form ‘Dear Scott,’ for the quicker-to-type ‘Scott-’, and by the second or third reply in an ongoing thread I’m just typing the body of my message, jettisoning all old-school norms.

Maybe it’s that I’ve learned to say less; maybe it’s that I’m writing more concisely; maybe it’s that I’m realizing that an ongoing babblecast of all thoughts Gulker on 3 or 4 different channels is not making the world a better place, and I need to trim the verbiage.

Journalists used to hold the crown for compact exegesis, using the inverted pyramid style in which the writer says the most important thing first, then the second, and so on. On Twitter, you barely get a crack at the headline, much less the lede graf. It’s like you’re describing the smallest element of the most important thing, maybe. Or you try to write something brief and cute or provocative with one of those short links that have ‘bit.ly’ or ‘tinyurl’ in them.

In the past, the highest-paid writer at daily newspapers in London, especially the newstand-sale-oriented tabs was the person who wrote the banner headlines on the front and back pages. A clever head could mean a big street sale, and the market was crowded with competitors trying to grab the same set of eyeballs, all pre-Internet. Where are those guys, I wonder, on Twitter? @clever? I should follow that group.

But, I digress. I’m not really sure where this is going, so I’ll stop. As the Chicago School of Philosophy would say, ‘Let’s get a beer and think about this’… 12:39:18 PM

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