New microsyntax for Twitter: three pointers and the slasher

Slash balloons

Image based on Kevin Van Aelst’s original.

Since it’s apparently all the rage to design your own features for Twitter now, I figured I’d build on my success with the hashtag and crank out a few more.

All of these are simple conventions for adding more standard metadata to a post in a specific, uniform way.

The Slasher

First, I’ve decided to migrate from encapsulating my metadata in parentheses to using a slash delimiter (”/”), which, for shits and giggles, we’ll call “the slasher”. This saves you ONE character, but hey, those singletons add up!

Now, the pointers. “Pointers” are short words with different intentions. A group of pointers should typically be prefixed by ONE slasher character. You can daisy-chain multiple pointer phrases together, padded on both sides with one whitespace character. There should be NO space following the slasher. Hashtags should be appended to the very end of a tweet, except when they are part of the content of the message itself and indicate some proper name or abbreviation. Normal words that would be part of the content of a tweet anyway SHOULD NOT be hashed.

If this doesn’t make sense yet, don’t worry, just read on.

Via

Let’s start with via, the first “pointer”.

The concept is simple and already widely used: sometimes you want to give credit to someone (as part of the pay-it-forward link economy) for something they said or linked to, without quoting them verbatim (which is what RT or “retweeting” is for, in my estimation and use). Now, a lot of people already use the “via” keyword — in fact, it’s a setting in Tweetie, and looks like this in practice:

Tweetie with via in parens

My proposal is simple, but would look like this instead (note that there’s still no colon):

Tweetie with /via

Saves you one character when used with the slasher delimiter and doesn’t look half bad.

CC

Next is cc — or “carbon copy” — not Creative Commons! Of course, if you ever used email this one should be obvious. The job of the CC is to indicate someone you want to direct a tweet at.

I follow 1600 people — and it’s highly unlikely I’m going to see everyone’s tweets — and I don’t really make an effort to do so. In the off-chance someone specifically wants to get my attention, they can just CC me, like I CC’d my friend Lauren in this tweet:

Twitter / Chris Messina: It's like TripIt for ships ...

You’ll notice how, using the slash notation, you’re able to serially string together several pointer phrases: i.e. “/via @cshirky cc @laurendarby“.

By

The last one I’ll mention is by. As you can imagine, the “by” syntax is similar to “via” and “RT”, but not quite the same. It’s more like the cite or blockquote HTML tags in that they provide a simple way to attribute authorship for a longer-form piece — i.e. not from a status update or spoken utterance (that’s what RT and OH are for respectively).

Here, I’m quoting a passage by Dominiek ter Heide (@dominiek) that I took from a blog post that he wrote:

Twitter / Chris Messina: "Activity is the new oil + ...

So, why bother writing these up? Well, I never expect that anyone will follow my lead, but if they do, I’d like to spell out what I’m doing so they can more or less get it right. It seemed to work with hashtags, and these ideas proposed here are even simpler. Now, you might not expect that, one, two, or three characters in tweets would make that much difference, but when you’re taking about a payload that maxes out at 140, each scintilla must carry its own significance. As such, there is value in coordinating our language, and providing some basic guidelines that emerge based on behavior — so that we can encode more meaning into these little blips of communication.

I’ve started tweeting using these patterns and invite you to do so as well when it makes sense. If you have your own ideas for microsyntax, Stowe Boyd started a wiki a while back to document them, so feel free to contribute your own or improve or use the ones already proposed!

This entry was written by Chris Messina and posted on Nov 8th at 4pm and filed under Life online, Technology, The Web Arts. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

2 Comments 568 Tweets 36 Other Comments

284 Comments

  1. Ankush Narula said
    at 4pm on Nov 8th # |

    Interesting idea Chris – you’re proposing more semantic tagging. So is /by a direct quotation? Also, what if you want to CC multiple people? Perhaps /cc @factoryjoe+@scobeleizer+@arrington ?

  2. kitt said
    at 4pm on Nov 8th # |

    I’m all for it. Anything to save me those extra characters, which really do add up, especially referencing longer usernames in tweets. The cc idea is my fave.

    Thanks for the suggestions!

  3. Ben Darlow said
    at 4pm on Nov 8th # |

    I have to say, I disagree. The more microsyntax you add to Twitter, the less room there is for actual data. Hashtags have made Twitter a worse place, not a better one (proof: trending topics don’t need to be hashtags). Same goes for all this RT and via nonsense — just link to something and describe why you’re linking to it using Human language. Surely sharing the information behind a link is far more important than getting credit for sharing the link, right?

  4. Shawn K said
    at 4pm on Nov 8th # |

    Thanks for this! Great ideas, I’ll try to remember them.

  5. Sam Johnston said
    at 5pm on Nov 8th # |

    Agreed, interesting stuff… just use space for multiple @names though, right?

    Sam

  6. Chris Messina said
    at 6pm on Nov 8th # |

    @Ankush Narula: /by is intended to be as a direct a quotation as 140 characters would allow, yes.

    For cc’ing multiple people, just put a space between their names — no need for the plus:

    /cc @factoryjoe @scobeleizer @arrington

    @Ben Darlow: I’m sympathetic to your point. A lot of people didn’t like hashtags in the beginning and they probably still don’t. The syntax I’m proposing at least doesn’t seem as obviously ugly as the hashtag mechanism.

    As for not polluting Twitter with more syntax — one goal is to simplify your consumption of content on Twitter — so that you can focus on the content and peripherally consume the meta. By moving the meta to the end of the tweet, I’m trying to get people to move the good stuff to the front and have a consistent, convenient way of saying the things they’re already saying.

    And I should point out, hashtags would never have taken off if people weren’t using them — because people want to be able to organize themselves without the overhead of groups and group moderation. This syntax might lead to new and interesting ways of consuming context through microblogs, so in general, I think adding additional structure that’s easy to use is actually a good thing. But, you’re free to have an alternative perspective.

  7. Douglas Karr said
    at 6pm on Nov 8th # |

    Seems like we’re evolving and coming up with TTML … twitter text markup language. :)

  8. American Yak said
    at 7pm on Nov 8th # |

    I mean, tho, really, couldn’t we be doing SSH commands via twitter? (Ha.)

  9. colin said
    at 8pm on Nov 8th # |

    “The job of the CC is to indicate someone you want to direct a tweet at.”

    I believe that’s what “direct messages” are for. Why add more noise for other users?

  10. Ray Valdes said
    at 10pm on Nov 8th # |

    I think these ideas are great! They will likely be as successful as the hashtag.

    We also need a /hat-tip or /ht

    This is like /via and /by except /via and /by (as I understand it) refer to the original author of an utterance, while /ht is a nod to someone (a third party) who passes along a tidbit of unstated provenance.

  11. John Samuel said
    at 10pm on Nov 8th # |

    This is a great idea, will surely try with these options in future

  12. Chris Messina said
    at 10pm on Nov 8th # |

    Basically a CC is for those cases where you were going to tweet something publicly but wanted to make sure someone sees it (if they’re following their mentions). And, with lists, people no longer need to “follow” you to… “follow” you. That is, they could add you to a list and unfollow you, breaking your ability to direct message them. In any case, sometimes you want to provide a more subtle hint that a message is pointed in someone’s general direction without being directly aimed for them only.

    I don’t use CC that often, but I do find it handy.

  13. Luca said
    at 1am on Nov 9th # |

    this microsyntax looks nice and somewhat less artificial than the hashtags (even if i like the ‘#’), so +1 for writing down the basics (ah and the case for /cc is very well put)

  14. Tim Rombach said
    at 2am on Nov 9th # |

    Very useful microsyntax for twitter!

    http://twitter.com/TimRombach

  15. Tim Rombach said
    at 2am on Nov 9th # |

    Very useful syntax! THX

  16. Robert Myers said
    at 5am on Nov 9th # |

    Chris, how would you handle an RSS feed directly from one site onto twitter? I’ve been moving questions off of StackOverflow.com for a specific tag filter through an RSS channel, and onto the Twitter stream.

    I front each posted question on twitter with a static default “RT stackoverflow.com:” followed by the question, but this doesn’t seem quite right (it’s not really a re-tweet).

    Given the great article above, I’d be curious to see what you think. Thanks in advance!

  17. Laura said
    at 7am on Nov 9th # |

    I like the / usage described here. I have been using this character | but usually put a space after it.

    Not sure “by” is needed, except to differentiate it from “cc”. You could simply put the slash and the person’s name or Twitter @name.

    Just a quick comment about hashtags — I think they’re necessary. If you are talking about a conference (for example), you’re not going to use the name of the conference in every tweet. “Gosh, speaker B just made a great point about C.” How would they be aggregated without a hashtag? Or you’re commenting on a show you’re watching. “Gee, will character X really do Y?” You need the show’s name as a hashtag.

  18. Ben said
    at 7am on Nov 9th # |

    Lose the slasher, it is useless. Via, cc or by followed by @name is clear enough. KISS!

  19. Rob Lord said
    at 9am on Nov 9th # |

    Love it.

    Idea: implement a Slasher regex against the Tweetstream then track/thank well-formed slashers from @IAmTheSlasher. :)

  20. Ted Rheingold said
    at 11am on Nov 9th # |

    Chris,

    These are great. I started using immediately and expect they will be the norm w/in 6 months.

    Hopefully it will also be the norm that people lop off a /cc if one is in a tweet they are retweeting. I /cc’d someone today and now they’ve been cc’d so to speak 5 times. ;)

  21. Phil said
    at 3pm on Nov 9th # |

    Seems like too much work to remember all of that. it took me long enough to figure out what the heck “OH” stood for and is very confusing when you don’t know.

  22. Richard said
    at 5am on Nov 10th # |

    Seems sensible. If I put /bcc instead of /cc will readers be polite and look away so as not to see the names following?

  23. Andrew Hedges said
    at 11am on Nov 11th # |

    Prior art! :-)

    http://andrew.hedges.name/blog/2009/09/24/some-twitter-conventions

  24. Marsh Gardiner said
    at 12pm on Nov 12th # |

    I love this. May I suggest another? “/nb” for “nota bene”.

    E.g., when you want to add a comment to a RT, you might append:
    /nb I was thinking the same thing

  25. eric said
    at 2pm on Nov 12th # |

    In the first example for /cc where it follows a /via, did you intend to omit the slash?

    [blah blah] /via @name cc @friend

    Sure it saves another character, but you’re breaking the microsyntax

  26. Chris Messina said
    at 3pm on Nov 12th # |

    That’s the intention. And no, it’s not breaking the syntax, since I made it up! ;)

    To better understand the role of the slasher, consider this:

    [meat] / [meta]

    The idea is to separate the metadata from the post content, that’s all. All additional slashes doesn’t increase the amount of meaning — it just crowds the content.

  27. Marsh Gardiner said
    at 9am on Nov 18th # |

    /nb seemed archaic, so I’ve modified my own convention and am now using /me to demarcate my own notes on a tweet (especially retweets).

  28. Chris Messina said
    at 3pm on Nov 18th # |

    @Marsh: /me is a pretty cool way to demarcate your own additions! I like it! ;)

  29. Leo Ap Iwan said
    at 9pm on Nov 8th # |

    Interesante, pero el /by no seria lo mismo que el RT?

    This comment was originally posted on Uberbin.net

  30. NeoOrion said
    at 2am on Nov 9th # |

    Me gusta, aun que no veo el ahorro en el ‘via’ del caracter, todo lo contrario, veo uno más :s

    This comment was originally posted on Uberbin.net

  31. Propuesta para una mejor microsintaxis en Twitter @ ALT1040 | fire! blog said
    at 2am on Nov 10th # |

    […] Propuesta para una mejor microsintaxis en Twitter @ ALT1040 var addthis_pub="firecl"; var addthis_language = "es"; ← entrada anterior | comentar esta entrada ↓ […]

    This comment was originally posted on ALT1040

  32. Chris Messina said
    at 9am on Nov 10th # |

    It’s a good point. Any microsyntax has to prove its worth through use and adoption over time, not by merely being declared.

    I’ve been using /via for a few weeks now and find it works for me. It’s one-part style, one-party convention, just to make it easy on myself when I want to cite someone else as a source. Retweeting will no doubt change the dynamics of Twitter, and it’ll be interesting to see in what ways.

    Perhaps RT and /via go away — I’m not entirely sure. But like I said in my post, /via differs from RT in an important way: rather than just reposting what someone else said (the proverbial “forward” activity from email), /via is more about citing a source but adding your own commentary.

    Anywho, we’ll see if slashtags take off — I’m going to use them, but it certainly won’t effect me one way or the other if no one else does!

    This comment was originally posted on Hi, I’m Colin.

  33. Colin Devroe said
    at 11am on Nov 10th # |

    “/via is more about citing a source but adding your own commentary” – I like that. Thanks for the clarification (even if it was my own oversight).

    However, I do think it would effect you if many started using them. Perhaps they’d be adopted as conventions that Twitter promotes and even uses for future features. Surely that’d effect you.

    Thanks Chris.

    This comment was originally posted on Hi, I’m Colin.

  34. nic said
    at 9pm on Nov 10th # |

    keep up with the latest.

    This comment was originally posted on FriendFeed

  35. Will said
    at 3am on Nov 11th # |

    Neat. I wonder how many of these will catch on…

    This comment was originally posted on FriendFeed

6 Trackbacks

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