The geeks at Fonebase Labs just told us they have the best tweetstorm machine in the history of tweetstorm machines with the latest modification to their tweetstorming tool, Writerack.
“So we officially have the best tweetstorming app on the internet with our redesign,” Fonelabs frontman, Oo Nwoye, told us in an email conversation.
But wait, tweet what?
Tweetstorm. You’ve heard of it.
This means, when a Twitter user decides she wants to post a complete blogpost on her timeline, nevermind the notorious twitter 140 character limit. So she posts a sentence at a time, tweet after tweet, adding track numbers that serve as some kind of pagination so that her followers can follow her stream of thought. This is what a typical tweetstorm looks like.
1/ The thing that's interesting about #tweetstorms is that they turn Twitter into a blogging platform with several unique characteristics
— Fred Wilson (@fredwilson) June 28, 2014
2/ Instead of prose the posts are bursts of unique thoughts in sequence
— Fred Wilson (@fredwilson) June 28, 2014
3/ And each thought has its own comment thread
— Fred Wilson (@fredwilson) June 28, 2014
The ethics of this is a subject of fierce constestation, but this is not a post all about tweetstorm.
What does Writerack do?
Writerack automates this process. Instead of having to enter each tweet sentence after sentence and manually inserting the tracking number, “you can directly copy and paste what you want to tweetstorm in this box (the text box on Writerack) or you can type in directly. Writerack will automatically format it into a series of tweets and post them one after the other and order it accordingly,” the developers wrote in the instructional post on the webapp.
Does it work?
Yes, and very well too.
Do you have to sign up?
Yes. But it’s pretty straight forward. All the user has to do is sign in with her Twitter account.
Is there a character limit for Writerack?
For all the freedom of expression Writerack affords, there appears to be a character limit on the webapp. “We have clamped down on spam by limiting the number of tweets an account can send in a day,” Oo told us. It is unclear how much tweets an account can get away with per day. I am guessing ~15.
Is there a mobile app?
So far, none. It’s possible Fonebase Labs has that in the works. We have reached to Oo for comments.
How much does it cost to use Writerack?
Zilch, nada.
Are there other tweetstorming tools?
As a matter of fact, yes. And they’ve been around a long time too. Examples are, the iOS app, Stormy, Little Pork Chops and Tweetstorm.io which is currently in view only mode.
Does Writerack back up your tweets?
“If you go to writerack.com/twitterusername, you will see all tweetstorm by that user,” the developers say about the webapp. But while this is hardly a backup because when a user deletes a tweet on her timeline, the tweet also disappears from the Writerack page.
What happens to Writerack and its ilk when Twitter productizes tweetstorming?
That’s anyone’s guess.
The tool has been up since July, 2014, according to Whois, and Oo tells us that the tool so far has over 700 registration, 1123 tweetstorms and up to 60 thousand tweets. You can take it for a spin here.
[Update] There is an Android app for Writerack, and it’s available here.
Photo Credit: davedehetre via Compfight cc
