• • • Simple styling: bold and italic.
    • Linking, the HTML anchor element.
    • Audio enclosures for podcasting.
    • Can be updated.
• • <meta name="twitter:body" content="Limited [HTML](<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML>) can appear in the body of a card using the conventions of Markdown. You can **bolden** text, *italicize* it, break it into paragraphs, add anchor elements. It can be as long as you like.">
  • <meta name="twitter:enclosure" content="<http://scripting.com/2019/12/14/whatINeedForNodeHosting.m4a>">
• • There are lots of writers on Twitter, and lots of developer know-how in writing tools. But all that is frozen in time because Twitter only supports short bits of plain text, videos and images. As Twitter has become more dominant in text, longer writing has languished. You can do it, I do -- but it can't be part of Twitter. And that creates a dilemma for writers. Try to stuff your writing into a thread, or a screen shot, or link to it. All of the approaches have problems, why not just solve the problem, and give writers a solid path into Twitter as photographers and video-makers already have.
  • Writing tools and writers: they all ready for Twitter to create the bridge, and it turns out it's remarkably simple.
• • Linking is the defining feature of the web. Twitter already allows links, one per post and displays a truncated URL. The blog post type would allow HTML links, anchor elements.
  • Enclosures would render as they do in podcast clients. There's lots of excellent prior art. At a minimum, have a small icon of a pair of headphones linked to the MP3 file. Click the icon to listen to the podcast. This would make Twitter a very simple podcast client. At this stage in the growth of podcasting this would be a welcome form of support for podcasting as an open medium.
  • We're not asking Twitter to support full HTML. Keep it simple. Layout of text, not an option. No styling beyond bold and italic. The goal is to create a broader mechanism for content flow, without going down the same rabbit holes we went down last time.
  • It's possible that other content types can be added later. For example, I'd love to see an outline object, like the one you're reading now, as a legit attachment to a tweet.
• • Twitter is, as I see it, the world-scale notification system, and is currently by far the most open to enhancement by independent developers. It may not have that rep, but as a developer, I know their API is very powerful and performs well. Twitter has been willing to keep it open, and that says something about their philosophy. I'd be happy to discuss the question of whether developers should trust Twitter, and how much. I have the battle scars having been on all sides of the platform-developer relationship in a long career.
  • Twitter is great for writers as it is. No sarcasm. Since it went to 280 char tweets, and with the better tools for composing threads, we've been getting a lot more out of it. The tools for moderation in Twitter are much better too. But -- there are other kinds of writing than 280-char text without titles, styling, links and podcasts that should be hooked into Twitter notification.