If the medium is the message, what are we to take of a service famous for short text messages evolving into a medium that can be embedded in other messages? Twitter has take a (web)page from YouTube in making videos created on its platform metastatic, spreadable and shareable.
We can now upload videos to @twitter & embed them: http://t.co/bUkVvBolaX Quite an evolution since 2007 pic.twitter.com/dRAUUpjkXN
— Alex Howard (@digiphile) March 2, 2015
While the ongoing shift to more pictures and video isn’t going to make Twitter into the next Instagram — it’s its own thing — the social platform has certainly come a long way since its text-based origin in 2006!
When I joined Twitter in 2007, I thought it was interesting, combining presence technology with mobile publishing and microblogging. A year later, I saw much more potential in the service than the sarcastic dismissal it tended to receive in the media and business worlds. It wasn’t until a disputed election in Iran in 2009, when online discussion and sharing of documentary evidence leaking out of that country led CNN to change its coverage, that the world started waking up to what Twitter would eventually become. While my embrace of Twitter has led some commentators to consign me to a triumphalist, intolerant cult of scolds, I continue to hold that there’s considerable value to be found here, premature eulogies notwithstanding.
digiphile 
Reblogged this on Felix Chen.