ReadWriteWeb’s Richard MacManus argues that Twitter should no longer be constrained by its 140-character limit. He says TweetDeck has recently introduced Deck.ly, which enables longer messages (although it appears to be roundly hated by everyone I follow on Twitter) and it’s only a matter of time before Twitter itself follows suit, in order to be more fully embraced by the mainstream.

I think MacManus is wrong. The mainstream embraced short-form messages in the SMS age, and so Twitter is hardly tough to grasp. But if Twitter did ditch the character limit, it has a lot to lose. The forced brevity of tweets is a major part of what attracts people to the service: anyone posting is forced to be brief; consumption is quick. With longer tweets, you end up with realtime public messaging that’s little different from some kind of hellish full-post RSS feed that never goes away.

MacManus:

If Twitter drops the 140 character limitation, I think Twitter producers will adjust and only post longer tweets occasionally. Twitter will need to monitor that somehow, but – barring a drastic change in user behavior – Twitter users won’t stop producing short tweets just because long ones become available to them. They’ll use the long tweets sparingly, because they’ve been habituated into doing short tweets.

People use what’s available to them, and it only takes ‘noise’ (i.e. stupidly long tweets) from a few parties to wreck the magic of the service. If you want longer messages, get yourself a blog and fire post headlines to your Twitter feed

MacManus again:

As for new users, Twitter will need to effectively convey in their marketing that Twitter is ideal for short-form real-time messaging.

So from a focussed “here’s what it’s for” message to one that’s muddied with “well, it’s good for this, but can also be used for that”. Yeah, I can’t see any problems with that idea.

It looks like Sony Computer Entertainment’s Michael Ephraim got smacked by the WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? stick after his recent comments on iTunes. If clicking the previous link’s a bit much effort, he said:

If we do [get mass take up] then does Sony Music need to provide content to iTunes?

Currently we do. We have to provide it to iTunes as that’s the format right now.

Publishers are being held to ransom by Apple and they are looking for other delivery systems, and we are waiting to see what the next three to five years will hold.

Because tech writers are stupid, we all assumed this meant Sony was considering punching iTunes in the face, if Sony somehow managed to not make a total mess of its own digital music offering. (Recent history suggests not betting the farm on that eventuality.)

Business Insider now reports that Sony Network Entertainment COO Brandon Layden has a rather different take:

Sony Music as I understand it has no intention of withdrawing from iTunes, they’re one of our biggest partners in the digital domain. I think those words were either taken out of context or the person who spoke them was unclear on the circumstances.

*sniff sniff* Hmm. Smells of backtrack.

As reported on THE INTERNET, Apple is locking down in-app purchases for content-based apps. In a nutshell, developers will have to enable purchases available elsewhere in the app as well, and for the same price. This means Apple gets a cut, and the content provider loses 30 per cent. Apple argues this rule has existed since the start of iOS IAPs, but it’s just not been implemented for apps like Kindle and Spotify, and claims it’s not out to ‘kill’ such products.

Peter Steinberger on why Apple’s not being entirely truthful about its plans:

Setting up IAP is a pain. Keeping it in sync with your library is even worse. And there are also limits – IAP allows up to 3500 items – Amazon Kindle currently has about 2.5 MILLION items.

So not only is this likely impossible for Amazon from a commercial standpoint—its razor-thin margins don’t allow for Apple to take 30 per cent of any purchase—but it’s literally impossible using Apple’s current infrastructure. (Note: Amazon itself is no angel, since its margins have a tendency to put small publishers out of business, and it used to demand up to a 70 per cent cut—something a lot of people and pundits appear to have forgotten. This post isn’t about defending Amazon from the ‘evil’ of Apple.)

In other words, Apple’s reportedly giving Amazon until June 30 to totally change the way it deals with Kindle, but it’s impossible for Amazon to comply. This is about getting Kindle off of iOS, because it competes with iBooks. Thing is, Kindle being booted off iOS won’t make people switch to iBooks—it’ll make people buy Kindles. And time people are using their Kindles is time they’re not using their iPads and iPhones, potentially reducing the likelihood of them making purchases.

More importantly, I believe Apple is making a bad move in turning Amazon into an enemy. Amazon has already revealed plans for an Android store, and unlike the various kinds of shambles available elsewhere, Amazon will do it properly. In other words, it’ll be like Apple’s App Store, but for Android. Additionally, Amazon now owns Lovefilm, which European Apple TV owners were hoping would become the bundled Netflix equivalent outside of the US. If Apple and Amazon start butting heads, Lovefilm will instead become part of Amazon’s arsenal in creating an Apple-like ecosystem on Android that has the potential to hit iOS hard.

Under the link-bait title War looms as Sony hints that it will abandon iTunes, The Age interviews chief executive officer of Sony Computer Entertainment, Michael Ephraim, who actually hints (a bit) that Sony might (rather than will) abandon iTunes.

On Sony’s Music Unlimited, he says:

If we do [get mass take up] then does Sony Music need to provide content to iTunes?

Bwuh? Because, obviously, the most sensible thing to do is make it so you can only get Sony music from a Sony shop on Sony devices. I foresee no problems here, and it won’t at all have Sony artists spitting fury about the company having removed their music from the biggest online music merchant.

Currently we do. We have to provide it to iTunes as that’s the format right now.

The format? What? What format? Are you talking about AAC? Or do you mean “it’s a system Sony has to support”, in the same way that Sony supports, say, Amazon and Walmart?

Publishers are being held to ransom by Apple and they are looking for other delivery systems, and we are waiting to see what the next three to five years will hold.

Yes, those poor publishers. Why won’t anyone THINK OF THE PUBLISHERS? Man, Apple really are bastards, revolutionising the online music space, actually encouraging people to buy digital music (rather than nick it), and making a success of this. Poor Sony. I WILL CRY TEARS FOR YOU TONIGHT.

Everyone crows about Google being open and the good guy of the internet, battling the perceived evils of Apple, Microsoft and Facebook. What people don’t seem to get is that Google’s just a different kind of bad guy: one that’s somehow convinced (both itself and everyone else) that it’s all sunshine and roses, but that sneakily punches you in the back of the head whenever it feels like it.

Case in point: yesterday, without warning, one of the sites I’m involved with had its AdSense account blocked. There is no proper recourse and there is no transparency. You can appeal, but if you lose, you cannot sign up for AdSense again. There’s no explanation. There’s no way of accessing your data to answer Google’s own questions regarding your account that you need to answer accurately in order to appeal.

This seems to be an increasingly common occurrence, especially with smaller sites without the means to fight the ‘don’t be evil’ giant, but also with entrepreneurs who suddenly find accounts earning them thousands of dollars per month are suddenly locked, wrecking their business.

I’m sure the many blinkered fans of Google will provide some explanation for the company’s actions. “Maybe you got click-bombed,” for example, “and you should always protect against that, you idiot! I WUV GOOGLE!” And so on. But it’s not the account being blocked that’s the problem—it’s the process, which is about as far from open as it’s possible to be.

Still, that iOS App Store review process, eh?