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A solution to the Twitter problem

Twitter is making a lot of people mad these days, including me.

I think I have a solution.

First, they urged third parties to build clients to help their platform grow.  Now, they have changed their API rules and cut many of those innovators off at the knees.

They finally got my goat this week when IFTTT.com announced they were having to delete recipes due to the API change.  I had several recipes but the one I'll miss most copied any tweet I Favorited to Evernote for later reading.

Most of my time to scan social sites is during bits of downtime during the day, and I'd do it on my phone.
Many times I'd be reading tweets on my phone, see a tweet with a link I wanted to read later when I could give it more attention.

I could favorite a tweet on Tweetdeck with three touches.  IFTTT.com would see the Favorite and copy it to Evernote.

I can share to Evernote on my Android phone, but it takes five touches.  Not a big deal, but it takes longer because I have to wait while screens come up.

Meanwhile, my other first world problem was I was not using Google+ as much because I didn't have the time to interact with it as much as posts there seem to deserve.  I would like to read Google+ on my phone, and mark posts I want to review later, at home on a tablet or PC.

I know there is a serious attempt to replace Twitter with a pay model with app.net.  I worry though that the $50 cost will keep it from reaching critical mass.

But there is a solution to the Twitter problem, and at the same time create something akin to Twitter that allows conversations.

All that needs to be done, is add a headline field to Google+ posts.

It can be a 140 character's if desired.

When you create a Google+ post, you write a 140 character summary, or headline.  If you fail to create a headline, Google+ can simply use the first 140 characters of your post.

Mobile users can opt to just see the headline, as they now see Tweets.  Then can then drill down to the full post if they want and even to comments, or mark it for review later on a larger screen.

What do you think?  Am I on to something?

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