We’re pretty excited here in Australia to be the first people globally to talk about a new text compression technology just released by Razorfish, one of the worlds largest digital agencies. The Razorfish guys in white coats have developed a compression algorithm that works on text, a bit like the way jpeg compresses an image – which means HUGE news for everyone using Twitter.
Try it now! www.tweetdoubler.com
Twitter normally only allows 140 characters. This Razorfish web application allows you type DOUBLE the normal amount.
You simply enter the text (up to 280 characters) – the compression takes about half a second, next your compressed tweet is sent out (under 140 chars) and then automatically decompressed as the end user views the message. It’s so simple, it’s hard to believe nobody has done this before.
We believe that in the future we can optimise the algorithm, potentially allowing 1000 characters to be compressed to inside Twitter’s limits of 140 characters. This first round of beta testing will provide us with enough data to push limits in the future.
Razorfish Credits:
Thanks to the globally coordinated team who have worked around the clock to bring this to life. Make sure you say Hi to them on Twitter:
Olaf Prilo (@olafprilo) – Independent Science and Maths Consultant.
Iain McDonald (@eunmac) – Creative Director.
Stephan Lange (@Maniac13) – Project Co-ordination.
Chris Saunders (@thesaund) – Lead Coder.
Michael Kliennman – Lead Design.
Shiv Singh – (@shivsingh) Social Media Director.
David Deal (@davidjdeal) – Marketing Director.
Please note this is a beta version open for testing for today only. Enjoy & have a wonderful day 😉
Amnesia Blog 
[…] Razorfish TweetDoubler – Amazing Twitter tool that allows twice the character count – Razorfish […]
I for one am really disappointed in this beta. It only doubles the amount of characters when most common compressing tools for text will typically compress to to 1/3 the size. We should at least expect 420 characters. Also, what about a lossy version? Some of us don’t mind losing a character or word here and there, it’s only words. Such a great idea though. The binary code below is what I use in writing a compression algorithm. Maybe try it for better results.
01100111011100100110010101100001011101000010000001100001011100000111001001101001011011000010000001100110011011110110111101101100011100110010000001101010011011110110101101100101
We must stress that this is a beta only. If anyone experiences strange results feel free to post any errors or feedback here 😉
@eunmac
Depending on the text itself, you can actually get more than 280 characters out of this, I found. Amazing work, guys. I’d expect a call from Ev and Biz 🙂
I couldn’t think of enough to type so only did about 90 characters but tweetdoubler still did it’s magic and shrunk my tweet to 44 characters. Popped out just right the other end.
Awesome tool guys 😉
IMO this ruins the whole nature of twitter. You guys should be ashamed of yourselves. Who needs 280 characters. Twitter was just fine the way it was without you nerds ruining it for everyone.
****** *****? Do you do that Down Under?
It would be really good if this was built into Tweetdeck. I don’t like having to keep going to other sites, but this is a good idea and worth it if I need to type more than 140 chars.
I have told all my friends about it and hope this is a business success for you.
Server Error in ‘/’ Application.
Runtime Error
Description: An application error occurred on the server. The current custom error settings for this application prevent the details of the application error from being viewed remotely (for security reasons). It could, however, be viewed by browsers running on the local server machine.
Details: To enable the details of this specific error message to be viewable on remote machines, please create a tag within a “web.config” configuration file located in the root directory of the current web application. This tag should then have its “mode” attribute set to “Off”.
Notes: The current error page you are seeing can be replaced by a custom error page by modifying the “defaultRedirect” attribute of the application’s configuration tag to point to a custom error page URL.
Nice one guys. You always come out with earth shattering applications on April 1st. Last year if I remember correctly was ‘trust banners’ wasn’t it? https://amnesiablog.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/trust-banners/
Lol. April Fools joke?
Totally agree with Steve – Twitter is microblogging and the 140 limit makes people think before they type and make info concise and easy to digest.
I don’t want 280+ updates, it will become like a mini story feed which completely changes the appeal.
I am hoping this is an April Fools prank to raise publicity and drive some good old PR, if not stop trying to make Twitter into a volume game!
Also what privacy controls do you have for submitting account log-in info? For all I know someone could hack my account and post dodgy messages.
thanks
james
HAHAH! I guess I should stop trying to log in and get some work done today. 🙂
Wow. Great work guys. It works perfectly. Just tweeted this long message to let everybody else know:
@TamuraJones
I’d rather we create something that cuts the characters in half to 70. Everyone needs a bit of an extra challenge in their lives and 140 characters is starting to take waaaaaaaaaaay too long to read.
I knew this was an April Fools joke so I signed up for a new Twitter account to try it as I was just curious as to what I would get, perhaps a movie pop up on the screen or some image or something but no what do I find? Due to using your tool my new Twitter account password has been changed.
Playing a prank on April Fools day is one thing but getting hold of peoples passwords and blocking their access to their accounts in my mind is just down right wrong and I have half a mind to report this as illegal activity to Twitter.
Thankfully I signed up a dummy account beforehand but I just worry about all the people that may have tested this out and had perfectly good Twitter accounts made unusable?
I know there is a password reset and all that on Twitter but the one and only time I had to use that due to someone trying to gain access to my account (that time was not me trying out any daft apps just someone trying to get into my account) it took nearly 4 weeks for a new password link to come through.
This was simply wrong of you to do and at least an apology would be well received and along with that perhaps a reason? Once again I KNOW it’s April Fools day but this kind of thing is NOT a joke it is password THEFT!
Mark
Nice on guys, but you got beat by Twitterdrive: http://blogs.msdn.com/coding4fun/archive/2009/04/01/9525376.aspx
🙂
Greets from Blighty.
Bring back an updated version of the banner ads you were working on last year. Who cares about Twitter???
You April Fools!
[…] Razorfish TweetDoubler – Amazing Twitter tool that allows twice the character count We’re pretty excited here in Australia to be the first people globally to talk about a new text compression […] […]
I thought the point of twitter was short, sharp & to the point updates of potential interest.
youz have just re-invented the blog, but for twitter.
Good-one!
😉
Great April Fools
so dumb.
[…] Razorfish TweetDoubler – Amazing Twitter tool that allows twice … […]
As a top Twitter business user, I was sent an advance copy of the Tweet Adder System for my review. This is by far the best Networking Tool I have used for Twitter!
[…] Razorfish’s Amnesia – About being able to crunch text for Twitter! – read in full here […]
yesss very thanks man i love this site
😉 🙂