I recently stumbled across Chris's @chrisachard 10-tweet-thread about React hooks. It was pure genius.
- Writing more in less helps stay on point without beating around the bush
- It helps readers consume more knowledge from less content
- Chances of consuming knowledge from a tweet is more when compared to a blog post. (I read at least a 100 tweets a day whereas I only skim around ~10 blog posts a day)
Blog posts are more suited for in-depth elaborate dissection of a topic. But I personally feel tweet threads make it easy to consume knowledge if the content format is short and a can be summarised.
In that spirit I am planning to write more tweet threads on short topics that fit into 10 tweets and share it here.
Here's my first thread — CSR vs SSR
And second — React Dev Tools
Would love to hear your thoughts on this.
Top comments (7)
My thoughts?
I hates it, I do.
I'm all for using platforms in new and exciting ways, but the problem of being able to write more than 140 characters has already been solved.
I hate trying to read threads on Twitter. It's not designed for it and you always end up in the middle or reading in reverse order depending on how you arrived.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Ben. I do agree with some points. I want to give it a try anyway. Cheers!
It's an interesting one, since it increases the share-ability of each individual part... so people are more likely to share parts that resonate. Just having a large footprint with a lot of tweets is going to create a lot more attention, too. I think it's pretty neat... maybe I'll give it a go, too.
My way of learning new/better is by videos (that's why I also prefer to create small videos), than to write long blog posts (I know google indexing doesn't index video content, and I am looking for better ways to get indexed than to write)
Not against the tweet thread, but if you have something longer lasting to say, I don't think twitter is the right medium. Tweets may get a bunch of attention up front, but then lost in the ether after a few weeks, or even days. A book on the other hand, is something that is often toiled over for the sake of polish, due to it's physical permanence. Tweet threads often lack the polish and permanence that they sometimes deserve.
All that said, I think it's sad that blogs are being frowned upon. A blog post can strike a nice balance between the quick read of a tweet thread, and the permanence of a book. They allow the author to write on a focused topic, without having to awkwardly break it up into 240 character segments. Tweets are limited to 240 characters for a reason. Anything longer, can be structured using these things called 'sentences' and 'paragraphs' ;) Also, unlike a book, the blog post can be updated over time. Thoughts can be easily revised, broken links can be updated, and stale content can be deleted.
TL;DR: Tweet threads are fine, but I think it all depends on what you're writing about. I tried it once. It went swimingly!
PS. Don't you think it's sad that in our culture of instant gratification, people don't read books nearly as much? I have a shelf full of novels that I don't have the patience to read, because I have a smart phone that gives me quicker hits of dopamine. I wish I read more!
That was right Dinesh. I too watched the Chris Achard tweet threads which was so simple yet genius. Tweet threads for small content knowledge is a good idea.