How to fix X / Twitter for bloggers
The blogging platforms are a mess. X could fix that if it wanted to.
The very fact that I am writing this on
is telling. Yes, I could write the same text in the long version of a Twixx (Twix could be a nice compromise between Twitter and X, but that is a chocolate) as Twixx gives 4000 characters and allows for some rudimentary formatting. But on Substack:I can have even better formatting. Not full HTML but just enough.
I can have links.
I can include pictures.
But most importantly, I have an archive of my writings. I may write one blog a week, or a month, and all that writing would be nicely listed on the blogging platforms. A longer post may be interesting weeks or years later.
Not on on Twixx. If I write something with substance there it gets buried and forgotten in the long list of trivial posts, replies, retwixxes etc.
On Substack we now have a copy of Twixx in the form of Notes. So one could be tempted to say, ah, but you can move from Twixx to Substack. Yes I can but my followers will not. The community will not. The community is there. What is said on Twixx has impact. Is seen by others. It is easy to move authors from one writing platform to the other. It is difficult to move the audience.
This is why Twixx has an advantage. Instead of stupidly throttling Substack, not showing post previews and generally make life hard for authors on Substack, Twixx should:
Offer a long content editor like Substack.
Create the following Twixx categories with separate tabs on the user profile:
short 280 char posts,
blog,
audio,
video.
Email subscriptions would be nice but are not essential.
Or we could have the best of both worlds so that X would stop discouraging sharing Substack content. Perhaps as a bonus for “blue” accounts at least.