At 670 words (or 4,091 characters, including spaces) Rob Walker provides intellectual fodder in this March 2000 review of “The Cluetrain Manifesto” in the New York Times Book Review.
In an effort to provide a Cliffs Notes version that is equally valuable to people with limited time to read verbose content, Mitch Joel is experimenting with a new Twitter account at BizBookReview.
Here is his review of the same book at 20 words (or 123 characters):
Which review stimulates you to read the 190-page book? And if you’ve read the book, which offers the better summary? Wouldn’t it be great if every New York Times Book Review writer had a shot at Twitter?
This ought to be a true test of journalism: How to condense 670 words to 20 without losing the message?
It goes to show that Twitter is not only used for answering the question, “What are you doing?” but if used creatively, the sky’s the limit. For instance, have you followed @PublicDomain where “Moby Dick” is being tweeted line by line?
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- 10 Twitter Users Share Why They Use Twitter
Comments:
Ari Herzog is an online media strategist and Newburyport City Councilor-Elect.
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{ 4 comments }
Sounds like a book version of a new start-up called http://thummit.com/. This deals with Twitteresque restaurant reviews. Of course there are people who enjoy a longer more detailed review. But for most people, they just want a quick simple review.
I enjoy the succinctness, clarity, and brevity enforced by Twitter. It’s amazing how much can be said in so little space.
Quoting @ryananderson: “Twitter has absolutely, positively made me a better writer and editor. ”
And @Pistachio (Laura Fitton) wrote: Seth Godin blogged about the likelihood of being misunderstood in 140 or <. But to me, it’s part of the point/charm. Improv. Interpretation
at the end of the day, it’s all good, clean, fun
Except if the book isn’t fun to read, Mitch!
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