REMEMBER: 2008 is when the Oembed API was published. this is what makes it possible to embed snippets of a website’s HTML ―for example, Youtube videos― on other people’s sites.
before Oembed, we would download the videos or images, keep a copy on our servers, and link back.
the problem is, you can’t do that with text. so we would copy and paste, linkback; and in the instances of needing evidence, we’d take a snapshop.
WAYBACK MACHINE was a solution to this forensics problem, btw
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BACK TO QUOTED TWEETS
taking snapshots of a tweet and posting them was a way of circumventing the blockquote conundrum with the 250 character limitation; BUT there was another limitation: CELL PHONE DATA PLANS.
there was no #Android when Twitter was first created. mobile posting wasn’t by way of an app. we posted via text messaging.
how much media you included in a mobile tweet was limited by your phone’s data plan. i certainly was, and that’s why my QT was optimized for texts… 🧵