No, you’re not going to have article-length tweets overwhelming your timeline, but Twitter is looking to let you write more without leaving the service. The company is mulling a new option that would let you write up to 10,000 characters, but only show the first 140 in the timeline with a button to reveal the rest. Re/Code reports the feature might launch in late Q1.

Exclusive comment from Oli Boyd

"Despite what you might think, removing the character limit on tweets is unlikely to have a profound impact. Facebook once had character limits and practically removed them by increasing the limit to 5,000 because they were deemed arbitrary.

While Twitter’s brand is more closely aligned with the limit, user behaviour didn’t alter dramatically after Facebook made their change and I expect the same to happen here. The brand is merely evolving to compete with other publishing platforms available to individuals (such as Medium and Linkedin) and its brave to take down a strong legacy feature."

Oli Boyd, head of business development, RadiumOne 

Twitterers currently use screenshot apps like OneShot to tweet more than 140 characters

On the other hand, one of the best things about Twitter is the information density. Since users have to condense their thoughts into bite-size knowledge nuggets, it’s easy to learn a lot while quickly scrolling through the timeline. Dropping the character limit could dilute the stream with babbling, and make us interrupt scrolling to constantly expand tweets to their full length.

Twitter will have to come up with a design that allows but lightly discourages tweets over 140 characters to preserve information density while permitting longer thoughts when absolutely necessary.

10,000 characters also happens to be roughly the length of a news article.If you want to see what it looks like, our guy Drew visualized it.

Typically, users tweet headlines plus previewed links leading to articles outside of Twitter. These links provide referral traffic that’s important to news publishers, and a way to connect an open canvas to Twitter. But they too interrupt the Twitter reading experience as users have to wait for links to load.

Facebook addressed this problem with its Instant Articles feature that pre-loads articles on special pages inside Facebook’s app so they display immediately when clicked. Twitter could potentially use the Beyond 140 feature to create its own version of Instant Articles.

To do that, Twitter would have to deal with the thorny issue of how publishers get paid for their content.

Facebook’s Instant Articles began with minimal options for advertising, recirculating users to a publisher’s other articles, and subscription sign-ups. Backlash ensued as I wrote how thisturned publishers into dumb content in Facebook’s smart pipe, severing their relationship with readers. And now Facebook has grown more flexible with how Instant Article publishers can push users to become loyal readers.

If Twitter hosted more content in Beyond 140, it would have to figure out how to compensate publishers

But similar to how Twitter’s cards evolved from simple previews of links to include interactive elements like buy buttons and sign-up forms, Beyond 140 could be the first step in Twitter’s hosted content strategy. And if Twitter built rich media “Instant Ads” into the expanded tweets, it could earn money without driving users away from its app.

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5 Reasons Your Next Press Release Should Be Visual

Aaron Sarno 

The holidays may be coming to a close, but Swiftmas is still happening in full force. On Thursday, Taylor Swift debuted her new music video for "Out of the Woods" on Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve hosted by Ryan Seacrest. 

And what an eye-popper of a video it is: a wilderness extravaganza that finds Swift, clad in a flowing blue dress, traveling through forests, scaling mountains, running with wolves, and standing amid blazing trees. 

Shot in New Zealand, the "Out of the Woods" music video is the sixth Swift has released from her 1989 album

A restaurateur has shot to infamy after posting a hilariously honest job advert on Gumtree. All that is known of the businessman is that he is an American named Justin.

The advert for the opening at a new eatery in Clarkston, East Renfrewshire starts by telling applicants that: “I have no problem working seven days a week, but on the off-chance I break my foot or get third-degree steam burns on my face I need someone who can work unsupervised and still make quality food … I need a second in command to bang out a ton of semi-fancy food in a kitchen the size of a closet, and you also have to put up with my wife because I do, and she's the real boss.”

He intends to open a diner that offers egg-centric breakfast and sandwiches, although he implores that “There are no eggs benedicts,” and fends off any idle candidates by adding: "If your idea of a good sandwich is a tuna mayo like your gran makes then please don't bother responding.”

Succinct covering letters and CVs are encouraged, with the brusque businessman implying that previous recruitment processes have involved reading too many prolix applications: “If you have one that says you're a ‘hard-working team player that can also function well alone’ and that you ‘value customer service and punctuality’ I will stab myself in the face with a pencil and nobody will get a job … Last time I was hiring for a place I got over 400 CVs. You know how long it takes to read 400 CVs? Too damned long. So don't waste anyone's time.”

On the subject of pay - £7 an hour for up to 55 hours - he simply says “The money is s**t. That's the best I can do. I'm dead serious about the money thing. Don't come to an interview and then say it sounds great but you've got your kid's school clothes to buy or whatever. You’ll literally be making more than me because I am essentially working for free until the place is paid off.”

Despite this barrage of brutal candor, the job does come with certain creative freedoms: “I will listen to your ideas and try your weird suggestions, but if I don’t love it we’re not doing it and that’s that. 

“I don’t care if you’re super outgoing or actually mute. I don’t care if you’ve got tattoos. I don’t care if you only work in kitchens to get away from your horrible significant other. I don’t care about anything other than that you’re fast enough not to be in the weeds constantly and you want to be part of something genuine and good. What you cannot do is be a pain in my balls because my life savings is on the line and I have to work with my wife all day so I don’t have time for any primadonna bulls**t.”

Justin closes the advert with a deadpan observation: “If you think I sound like an obnoxious d***head, congratulations. You are observant and will go far in life. Don't let it discourage you, though. I'm only a d***head for the first three years you know me. After that I'm a total sweetheart. If you're awesome and you have actual cooking skills, you'll probably be my best friend … and I'll let you put whatever horrible music you enjoy on the stereo and buy you beer

It’s not always easy to promote a product to an audience that is different than your usual one, and this creates the need for innovative ideas. That’s what Astra did, in order to promote their beer to women of all ages!

Astra, along with Philipp und Keuntje, decided to target women on their new campaign, in order to approach an audience that was usually overlooked by beer brands. Men are traditionally the ones that drink more beer, which results in relevant advertising. However, Astra thought of reaching a brand new target group, hoping to make more women try out their beer. In fact, they thought of creating a campaign that leaves out the male audience, targeting women exclusively! How can you promote your product to a specific genre though? That’s how they decided to create a girl detection billboard, an innovative way of marketing to an exclusive audience.

An illuminating billboard managed to grab the attention of women passing it by, engaging with them through relevant videos. What’s impressive is the ability to use the latest technology in order to customise the video for each occasion, creating more than 70 videos. There were even videos addressing men that stopped to observe the billboard, informing them that this ad is not for them!

The creative idea required the installation of a built-in camera on the illuminating billboard, along with the latest gender detection software, in order to detect the gender from people’s faces. What’s more, the software is even able to detect the age of a person, in order to ensure that they do not promote the beer consumption in under-aged women.

This was the first gender-specific advertising, both for a beer ad, but also for an ad in general, proving that there are always new ways to reach an audience that you haven’t targeted before. Even if you use billboard advertising for your latest campaigns, there is still a way to blend traditional marketing with digital re-invention, in order to reach your set goals.

According to Astra, their idea led to a significant amount of publicity, with many media sources reporting on this clever marketing campaign, being impressed both by the originality, but also by the technology used to implement the campaign.

And what’s even more important for Astra, is the fact that women seemed to like their beer, which means that they managed to increase their audience!

Credits

Advertising Agency: Philipp und Keuntje, Hamburg, Germany
Executive Creative Director: Robert Müller
Art Directors: Bastian Adam, Rouven Steiman
Copywriter: Christian Stamp
Technical Director: Holger Norden
Interactive Producer: Miriam Koch
Project Managers: Julia Cornils, Michael Mehring
Film Production: sonntagskind
Published: January 2015