Chirr does not update the content but removes the edited part of the thread and republishes it, so it's impossible to abuse.
Another thing I working on is delayed publishing ala Gmail.
Anything longer than that is probably going to get into the historic revisionist problem.
The only way I could see it working is if you opt in to say a 5 minute grace period where you can edit. But then your tweets won't actually show up on anyone else's feed for 5 minutes.
I released the initial version of the app in 2017 as a free and open-source tool (https://github.com/kossnocorp/chirrapp) even before Twitter threads become a thing.
Later that year, Twitter gave me a lot of trouble when they added 280-chars support but didn't update API and the twitter-text library. I was about to close it, but thanks to Firebase, the running cost was $0, so I fixed the issues and kept it alive.
With time, the app accumulated authority and users. Since 2017 when I first launched the app, it has been used by 9.5K people to publish 22K threads and 330K tweets! Happy users started coming to me with thanks and features requests more and more so I decided to rewrite the app and added tons of new features, like:
- Drag-n-drop images
- Editing published threads (yes, the edit button!)
- Drafts
- Scheduling
- And much more!
In case if anyone curious, the app is built with TypeScript, Preact, on top Firebase platform.
Looking at the demo (https://twitter.com/chirrapp/status/1282608419321643009) I think it removes the tweet you edited AND any later tweet in the same thread, and republishes those - the first with updated text, and the rest with the same content as before. Is that right?
I'm also working on adding a delayed publishing like in GMail, so you can edit typos even before the thread got published.
there's a big difference in how they're consumed. There is still value in blog posts, but sometimes a twitter thread is a web better choice if you want people to see / interact with what you have to say.
- https://twitter.com/dannypostmaa/status/1282952961857970176
- https://twitter.com/robhope/status/1265278107088347136
Of course, you can make a blog post from such threads (and probably should, if the thread got traction), but it would look and read differently.
Completely agree that Twitter’s UI for writing threads is pain.
I'm using FireFox on Mac
* They don't have to go off platform.
* the base tweet can be much more eye catching that a link, even with social cards set up
* People may be desensitised to links that lead off-platform, because that's how Ads generally appear on Twitter
Then there are other advantages, like the fact that it tends to encourage you to write in a concise and direct way, with each tweet in the thread being like a bullet point. I often see people retweeting and engaging with a specific tweet from the thread; it's harder (relative term) to do that with a section from a blog post.
- First of all, threads are often long-living i.e., authors update it over time. It allows them to surface the content every time they update it.
- Secondly, often every tweet's a self-containing idea. Blog posts usually are worried and need more time to grasp.
- Also, it's not only easy to consume but also to share.
I like, write and consume both Twitter threads and blog posts.