Titles are optional. Any post can have a title, or not. If you're writing something like a quick social media post, there's no need for a title. But if you're writing something longer, you might need one. It must be up to the writer to decide if a post gets a title.#
Links. This is what makes the web so powerful. When I have an idea that is explained elsewhere, I don't have to repeat it in my writing, I can just link to it. For example here's the Wikipedia page about social media. That's all I'm talking about.#
Simple styling, bold and italic. Don't overdo it, but sometimes you want to emphasize a word. It's part of how we speak, so it should be reflected in our writing. Amazingly, very few of the social media apps support simple styling. But it's not a new idea.#
Enclosures. This makes it possible to use social media for podcasting. Why not? The two seem to go well together.#
Unlimited length. Some ideas require very little writing, but others require more than 280 characters or 500. The writer should decide how many characters to use to express their idea. The apps don't have to display all the characters, they can add a More button which the reader can click if they want to see the full story.#
Editable. You have to be able to make a change and have it show up where ever the post appears. Writers make mistakes, receive feedback that they want to incorporate in the writing, think of a new idea, add a link to some other piece that covers a related topic. Editing happens. We need to support it everywhere.#
Styling and links could be implemented by running the text through a Markdown parser, and would provide extra formatting features like numbered and bulleted lists. #
The open source medium-editor can generate Markdown text using a WYSIWYG editor. #
Apps don't have to support every feature. But you should pass through what you're sent, making it possible for your app to peer with services that support other parts of the spec. For example, there was a time when the leading feed reader app required posts to have titles, and the leading microblogging site said they couldn't have them. That meant not only didn't they share data, they couldn't.#
Let's call the things we write and publish on social networks posts. That term has the longest history, it's simple, one syllable, and isn't tied to a particular system. To give them different names on each system -- tweet, toot, skeet -- as if our writing could only be read in one context, isn't imho what writers want. I don't feel that way about my own writing. #
We're at a good moment where there is no dominant feed reader or microblogging site. It's a fluid situation. New entrants could compete on the basis of how compatible they are with their competitors. The users would like to hear about that. It's a good time to get in at the beginning of something that could be even bigger than podcasting, for text. #
Imagine telling our 1980s selves, after using MacWrite, that this would be the state of writing on the net in 2023. There would have been no explanation I would have believed. #
This is the archive.org view of this page, so you can see how it has evolved. #
I am Dave Winer, I created blogging, feeds and podcasting. I did it once, I'd like to do it again, only better this time because we know more, the networks are much more capable than they were twenty years ago, and so is the software. And we have the experience with pitfalls we will avoid this time, hopefully.#
Posted: Monday December 12, 2022; 7:23 PM GMT+0000.