Pithy Branded Content

Pithy Tax

The meaning of the word “pithy” evolved over time:

• In the 14th century: "full of sap or juice"

• In the 16th century: "full of substance or significance"

• In the 17th century: "having a strong central core"

• In the 19th century: "terse and to the point"

• In modern usage: "concise and meaningful"

The book Writing for Busy Readers presents research on the length of communications:

Even when ineffectively written communications are read, they impose an unkind tax on readers’ time…one participant wrote: “Lengthy emails in today’s work environment [are] disrespectful of the reader.” The longer the message, the larger the tax.

Telegrams & SMS Characters

The telegraph revolutionized communications, particularly for railroads and financial markets, by enabling the communication of train operations and stock prices.

Founded in 2009, Stocktwits grew to millions of members and became the defining voice of "social finance.”

The price per character of telegraphs influenced pithy communication styles.

The StockTwits of its era, telegraph use resulted in telegram style, or “telegraphese”.

To reduce the cost, people developed a unique style of communication that was concise and efficient.

This was a clipped way of writing.

It abbreviated words and packed information into the smallest possible number of words or characters, while still conveying the message clearly and unambiguously.

When Twitter was first launched, the iPhone was still years away.

Thr primary phone-based method of text-based communication was SMS messages.

The product’s design - a holdover from 160 character limits of SMS - was a public training medium. It acted as a forcing-function to make writers be concise and self-edit ruthlessly.

Even after (relatively expensive) iPhones became more prevalent, users still relied on text messaging to post. Pithiness became part of the user culture to avoid paying character taxes.

For more than a dozen years, the 140 character limit of Twitter was an excellent product for writers (and readers).

Pithy content respects the reader, packing enough information to deliver an idea and prompt an action.

A generation of users who engaged with the product learned this skill, and others (knowingly or not) benefited from training in Twitter telegraphese.

The “tweetstorm” was a user hack to thread together longer pieces of content, all in the context of microblogging in modern telegraphese.

Some dude in Abbottabad, Pakistan was rattled by the sound of SEAL Team Six in helicopters overhead: so he basically tweeted out, “anybody else hearing this noise?”

A tweet could break global news and turned every user into a people-watching citizen journalist maven on social media.

Social Text Medium

From a product perspective, Twitter’s user experience put replies and quotes on equal visual footing, amplifying the position and power of any given user’s text relative to the original poster.

As a result, the platform became an effective social idea communication tool. The pithy text-heavy medium democratized power dynamics. It served as platform for various social movements around the world.

Socialization is important. We aim to socialize dogs and children. The prefix "socio-" refers to human interaction, while the suffix "-path" comes from the Greek root "pathy," meaning "disease" or "suffering.” Being anti-social is usually not saying anything good.

People who react emotionally against “social” movements are telling on themselves.

Social Product Management

Last year, I wrote a LinkedIn post saying:

Unfortunately, I think Elon Musk committed the cardinal sin of product management: he made the product’s problems a reflection of his problems.

Elon’s problems are: he’s extremely intelligent, and as a result, probably feels somewhat isolated and lonely. However, the bots pay him a lot of attention. They end up keeping him company, and subsequently, have turned his brain to mush.

The new owner of Twitter made the product roadmap about his problems, as opposed to the user’s problems. That requires empathy.

In terms of learning opportunities, this entire episode is a train wreck / dumpster fire / car crash and everyone is rubber-necking; it's almost impossible to turn away from.

Hopefully, there's some lessons learned, but we may not know what they are, yet...

One the Amazon’s principles is that leaders “Are Right, A Lot."

From a product perspective, almost a year later, the biography of Elon Musk, written by Walter Isaacson is validating the lack of empathy that drove him to commit the cardinal sin.

Social network products have a business model reliant on the spend of advertisers.

It’s not a hard physics problem like electric cars or satellites.

“Justice is what love looks like in public.” - Cornel West

Injustice is what hate looks like in public.

The anti-social, anti-justice, and anti-woke zealots sought to purposefully eliminate the forum of text-based conversations which pointed and laughed at them.

Twitter got too…uppity for the tastes of very stable geniuses.

Keeping up the pretense that MySpaceX is ad-supported is the result of a “woo-merchant” hand-waving.

Politics is downstream from culture wars, and controlling the flow of information influences attention in concise and meaningful way (i.e. alerts, trending topics, and “the vibe”).

The goal is to flood the newsfeed with shit, not to be a business.

The site formerly known as Twitter is a walking impersonation of a going concern, slouching towards inane, inept bankruptcy circus court.

If you find someone who is relying on:

• Twitter for news

• ChatGPT for facts

• Bitcoin for retirement

…then you’ll have found someone with an unfortunate and debilitating case of brain-worms.

Twitter was always only a slice of real-life.

Now it‘s where anti-normies manifest their issues.

Worth It

The in-name-only Xitter CEO had a 30-min Zoom call with the Anti-Defamation League. Then she followed it up with a public mention. Then anti-Semitic trolls pounced and their worldview was tolerated and promoted by ownership.

Content moderation was tilted in one awful and wicked direction.

But, both the Auschwitz Memorial and ADL tweet daily.

In terms of expense and brand awareness, it’s difficult to justify.

Months ago, when PBS and NPR left the site,

Robert Stribley

quoted me:

It doesn’t even generate traffic. From a brand and financial perspective, the juice is literally not worth the squeeze.

At some point, the clients in the bar change when ownership is a reactionary fascist with narcissistic tendencies and a moat of money to ward off consequences.

Patrons with a shred of self-awareness just need to look around and evaluate if the experience is worth the price of admission.

Rebranding Own Gól

In summer 2023, Twitter rebranded to “X”.

The website is x.com and the design symbol on the mobile app is a stylized X.

But, like Kleenex or Google, it was a consumer brand with a lot of equity.

In news articles referencing the hellsite, it is commonly referred to as “X, formerly Twitter.”

Some cybernauts have abbreviated it to “Xitter.”

Whenever I see Xitter, I pronounce it in Portuguese in my head.

In Portuguese, the letter “x” is pronounced “shi”.

Menus in Brazilian casual dining spots will frequently abbreviate “cheeseburger” to “X-burger”.

I don’t care what language you speak, Xitter is a hysterical and pithy brand name worth pointing and laughing.

But, wait, there’s more

In Spanish, the letter “x” is called equis.

To describe something as equis is slang for “whatever’”, “average’”, or “so-so.”

Self-Own

Whether Xitter or X, the product strategy is a pithy, anti-social branding auto-gól.

Update: I dunno how MySpaceXitter didn’t occur to me earlier.