It's Time To Think Big. It's Time For Deck.ly

“I have made this letter longer than usual, because I lack the time to make it short.”
Blaise Pascal, 1656

“Tryin 2 mk yr msgs fit into 140chrs is smtimes difficlt coz of the limits & u hv 2 use abbvrtns”
@richardbarley, 2011

French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal may have been a genius when it came to talking about binomial coefficients and hydraulic fluids, but even he understood that brevity in communication can sometimes be far from easy.

Fast-forward 350 years and the problem still remains. Although we may not all be tweeting about projective geometry, often we dont have the time or inclination to compress even our simplest of thoughts into 140 characters. And why should we? We are, after all, in the year 2011. Communication should be easier for us now, than it was for Pascal in 1650.

Here at TweetDeck we don’t want to you to feel you have to compress your message. If you have something to say, we want you to say it in all it’s glory. 

And you, our wonderful TweetDeck users, have been very vocal in asking, nay demanding, that we implement a feature in TweetDeck to help you with avoiding this enforced brevity. 

So, we would like to introduce you to Deck.ly - a brand new TweetDeck service that not only solves the riddle of unlimited message lengths, but also forms the basis of some more very cool features that will be coming soon.

What is Deck.ly?

Deck.ly is a new service we have created that will allow you to send messages of unlimited length. Your fellow TweetDeck users will be able to read these messages in full directly in their TweetDeck apps thanks to the cross-platform app updates we have issued today.

Deck.ly long updates work by creating a special web page which contains your full message. A truncated version of your message, plus a link to this web page, is posted to Twitter. Anyone using the TweetDeck apps for Desktop, Chrome or Android that we updated today will be able to read the full text of the message directly in the app. No need to swap to a browser to read the message elsewhere. As a TweetDeck user you get the best, most integrated experience from Deck.ly. Because, as the saying goes, you’re worth it…

Those crazy folk not using TweetDeck will see your long updates as normal tweets, but truncated and containing a link. Clicking this link will take them to the specific web page for that update, hosted on our server, where they can read your full message, including embedded images, videos etc.

Updates across the board

Today we are launching updates to our Desktop, Chrome and Android apps which bring support for posting Deck.ly long updates, as well as viewing those sent by other TweetDeck users. Each client handles viewing messages in a slightly different way due to the nature of each platform.

Desktop

Deck.ly long updates will be shown as double-height cells in your column. If the text is longer than can be displayed in a double-height cell, there will be a “read more” link at the end. Clicking this will open an in-app preview window where you can easily read the full text and respond via the standard reply, retweet etc

Chrome

Deck.ly long updates are auto-expanded inline up to a certain length. To read more just click the “Read more” link and the rest of the message will be displayed inline. Click “Read Less” to hide the extended portion again. Deckly long posts appear just like normal tweets, only longer, and you can respond to them as you would any other tweet.

Android

Deck.ly long updates are indicated by the […] icon in timeline view. Opening the detail view for one of these updates will show your the full text. Again, you can reply, retweet etc as normal.

iPhone & iPad - coming soon

Deck.ly support is not being added to the current iOS apps, but our brand new app, which will run on both iPhone and iPad, will have Deck.ly support built in from the start and will be available very soon.

A public service

It is important to note that any message posted via Deck.ly will be publicly visible at the specific http://deck.ly address included in your tweet when it is posted to Twitter. There are NO private Deck.ly updates. If you have a protected account and your tweet goes over 140 characters, you will see a warning that your update will be publicly available on the deck.ly website. If you wish to avoid your update being made public in this way, please keep your update to 140 characters or less. In this way, Deck.ly will not be enabled and your update will be sent as normal.

And of course, Deck.ly will not be activated for Direct Messages. 

On our Desktop and Chrome apps, you will also find yourself at a Deck.ly page if you click through to what would normally be a tweet detail page on Twitter.com. This Deck.ly page will of course contain all the information that is normally shown on twitter.com. You can, of course, click through to the standard twitter.com page if you wish.

Deck.ly and the future

For us, Deck.ly is more than just a way to post long messages. It is the first step towards our goal of helping you worry less about the specific networks you are engaged on, and more about actually communicating. Over time the boundaries between your social networks will blur, and opening a TweetDeck app on any platform or device will immerse you in your social world in a way that no other client can. 

We like to think that Pascal would have approved…