Freed from the constraints of the printed page (or...

Freed from the constraints of the printed page (or any concept of “page”), an author can now blog a short thought that previously would have gone unwritten. The weblog’s post unit liberates the writer from word count.

Blogger Meg Hourihan made this fantastic observation in 2002, when she observed that the “native format” of blogging - i.e., structureless format of online writing, was one of its most appealing assets. This was years before the emergence of Twitter, which, as you know, specifically limits the amount of words you can post to 140 characters.

I’ve heard a litany of complaints from people who think the platforms that support short-form commentary (like Twitter and Facebook) are ruining our attention spans and depleting the richness of the stories they promote.

I don’t hear enough people praising these short-form platforms for addressing a huge limitation in writing and adding immeasurable value to the new published world just by legitimizing brevity. By decreasing the space that online writers needed to fill, these platforms created the opportunity to share a multitude of brief thoughts. (Think of how strange it would feel to take up an 8.5x11 sheet of paper with a single tweet.) They created the space and the reasoning for sharing short ideas to an expansive community.

GENUIS, PEOPLE. GENUIS.

(via technologyshapeshistory)

Having a good SIP day. The positive externalities of short-form blogging platforms are BLOWING MY MIND.