Twitter's beauty resides in its 140-char limit: authors of Tweets don't feel burdened to write long messages, and readers know the messages will always be short and sweet. Sure, authors can circumvent this limit by linking to blog posts, but followers hate clicking on links so there's a disincentive to do so.
With these new changes, Twitter is making it easier for readers to visit linked content, but they're also making it easier for Tweet authors to be more verbose. Before, I had to painstakingly craft my 140-char message; but now if I'm having trouble doing that, I can just use the Tweet as a title and write my full message in an embedded text box. But isn't this just reinventing the blog?
Net users are hurried; they read summaries; they scan. Tweets nailed a 'headline/one-sentence' need; the hard limit was a part of the winningness.
Maybe, though, there's a series of gradual expansions of the attention you're willing to dedicate a thought, thread, person, or topic. There's the Tweet; there's a bit more context; there's a paragraph or two; there's a running conversation; there's an essay; there's a book.
The Tweet is still the gateway -- and you still need to be short and sweet there. But Twitter, Inc. wants -- and perhaps needs for a sustainable business model -- to play a role in your next few escalations-of-attention, in the direction that the Tweet sent you. NewTwitter (and t.co) are parts of their strategy to stay involved.
NewTwitter seems a little rough to me, so far -- so much new UI, so many sizes/intensities/colors of text, some new 'modes'. But, if they manage to give you just the context/followup info you want, in a manner less wasteful of screen and gestures then other options, it could be a win for them. And if you don't want all that second-pane stuff -- it's easy enough to ignore, or use a minimalist interface instead. The reader still needs to demonstrate interest with a click to see followup info, so Tweet-authors can't change their style too much. It's just that click-showing-interest may be easier for the user -- not requiring a full-page load or new web tab.
I cant bring up the exact stats right now, but everything I have seen would suggest the same, if I remember off the top of my head 2 things with a reasonably large reach on twitter ( between 100,000 and 1,000,000) had around 0.5% clickthrough rates, that struck me as tiny.
However I would consider clickthrough rates to be a poorly suited metric for Twitter. If you're not using Twitter to just follow your friends then your typical use case is just dipping in and reading some tweets when you have the time (the 'fire hose' model). Having one million followers does not mean that one million people will read a given tweet.
Twitter's beauty resides in its 140-char limit: authors of Tweets don't feel burdened to write long messages, and readers know the messages will always be short and sweet. Sure, authors can circumvent this limit by linking to blog posts, but followers hate clicking on links so there's a disincentive to do so.
With these new changes, Twitter is making it easier for readers to visit linked content, but they're also making it easier for Tweet authors to be more verbose. Before, I had to painstakingly craft my 140-char message; but now if I'm having trouble doing that, I can just use the Tweet as a title and write my full message in an embedded text box. But isn't this just reinventing the blog?