Post · Bonfire at The Nexus Today

ANYWAYS, the point of this background is to remind y’all that tweets are microblogs and every feature that made Twitter what it is today came from bloggers like me trying to adapt blogging & writing conventions into the limited framework of 250 characters.

the explosion of acronyms ―already developed thru text messaging― came out of that too: OMFGLOL, QFTMFT, RTFM, FAFO

so my QTs ―quoted tweets― were always intended as a form of citation & blockquote; of repeating with attribution… 🧵

your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦

@blogdiva@mastodon.social replied · 2 days ago

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

🧵

your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦

@blogdiva@mastodon.social replied · 2 days ago

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… 🧵

your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦

@blogdiva@mastodon.social replied · 2 days ago

WHENEVER I POSTED A QT, i limited the text to 100 characters, always included the permalink to the source and name or handle of the writer.

AGAIN: because at their most basic function, a #quotePost is a form of bloquote and citation. you don’t just want to include the text or image of import but you also want to give ATTRIBUTION.

so, with a QT we were able to
- highlight interesting or important text
- establish a source and attribution for that text

🧵

Bonfire at The Nexus Today

A (potentially-temporary) instance for playing with Bonfire.

Bonfire at The Nexus Today: About · Code of conduct · Privacy ·

Bonfire social · 1.0.0-rc.3.26 no JS en

Automatic federation enabled