Back in June, I made the decision to break up with WordPress and post all my new startup ideas to Twitter. Six months later, I’m walking out on Twitter and returning home to my blog.
Why?
Like any fling, at first it seemed like a match made in heaven. To heck with all these “words” and “thinking” – with Twitter I could just dash off a few keystrokes and I was done. Twitter fed my innate predisposition towards habitual laziness and instant gratification. And for a while, it was pure bliss.
But like taking a leggy blonde wearing three inch heels on a hiking trip, the practicalities of the situation soon begin to set in.
Shoehorning my ideas into that 140 character box required me to cut out features, water down the functionality, and strip out all of my color commentary (which may not be such a bad thing for many of you).
For example, take this one (from mid-July of this year):
Idea: OneClick – Mobile app, allows users to perform commonly-used, very specific actions in a single click.(i.e. get directions to address)
Now, in my head I was thinking of something like AppBox Pro, which released in September and has been comfortably perched in the top 50 paid apps list ever since. If I had more room, maybe I would have gotten the chance to really sell this vision and possibly even given one of you the inspiration to build something like this yourself. But, instead, I just dashed out the idea in a minute or so and went back to checking myself in the mirror to see if there was any lipstick on my teeth.
As I alluded to in the title, I don’t mean for this to be an indictment of Twitter. I’m still going to be using it regularly for quick status updates or to notify followers when I have a new blog post ready. Like most shiny new things on the Interwebs, it’s all about finding the right tools for the job at hand.
So, what’s next for the blog?
First, I’ve got a handful of Twitter ideas that I’d like to flesh out a bit. Also, my old buddy Paul Graham has posted a few more idea stubs that I want to tackle. I’ll keep doing more of the same ol’ post-an-idea shtick, but I may try to experiment with more practical ideas along with the crazy ones.
And finally…I know it’s against everything that is good and holy in my world, but I’ve actually taken a few trips outside of my ivory idea tower and started coding again.
Thanks for reading, and, Twitter? Keep your chin up, kid. I know it hurts now, but I have a feeling you’re going to be just fine.
A Startup A Day 
great article, I’d like to know if you’ve already implemented some of those ideas or someone else has done it. Can’t believe I just discovered this blog today.
And who are you again? Oh! You’re Chris Pearson and you have a blog. I never heard of you before. Perhaps cause you were on Twitter. Now I am at least aware of you. Anything on twitter is most likely mundane, boring and too much noise to signal. I know no one on twitter and I never will attempt to follow anyone on twitter.
You aren’t the first to say they’re returning to blogging and I hear this more and more. If you can’t write it down in words (more than 140) how are you going to be able to explain it to anyone?
Anyway, welcome back to the real world.
Just grab a WP plugin for “asides” posts and you can have twitter-like functionality right here on your blog, without silly char limits and the inability to use real html.
I always prefer blogs over twitter. Twitter is good for quick thought dumping, but there no substitute for freedom provided by blogs.
our startup Redanyway (http://www.redanyway.com) an easy way to share your posts. same way as twitter is for microblogs or u can think it of as ff limited to blogs. lemme know wht do u think
Agreed. Twitter is perfect for people who don’t have much to say.
mcsquare – Thanks for the nice words. I’ve had one person explicitly build a site off one of my ideas, and I’ve set aside one or two to work on myself. Here’s an example of one: http://www.rosettaphone.net
I’ve got another that I’ll be launching in about a week, and will definitely post about it when it’s ready.
Rob – thanks for the comment. Athough, ironically, my name is Kevin Leneway. Chris Pearson is the designer who built this lovely theme. 🙂
Regardless, you make a really important point that I didn’t mention in the post. Twitter is (by design) meant for quick, throwaway comments. I’ll usually spend a good 30 mins to a hour coming up with an idea, and when I throw it out there I want to bring the right amount of attention to it. Blogs are meant for that, while Twitter is not.
Again, all about using the right tool for the job.
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i dunno, this is all based on that leggy blonde in 3 inch heels going hiking. i’m pretty good at that. what happens to the math then?
That’s what’s called “Twitter Math”. It’s the same math they used to calculate their $1,000,000,000 valuation.