Twitter Clone Nano Blog Chuitter Limits 14 Letters Instead Of 140

Posted on September 28th, 2009 by Akky Akimoto

chuitter-logo

If 1,400 letters-limit macro-blog Woofer is an American answer to Twitter, 14 letters nano-blog Chuitter is from Japan, where Haiku and other short, tiny thingy are loved.

chuitter-top-screenshot

I don't know how much serious this service is (Chuitter design seems too similar to the original Twitter), but their first day of launch seems successful. Many Japanese Twitter users are trying this clone.

In reality, 140 letters limit of Twitter is much longer in Japanese when comparing with English. As some of you may know, one letter in Kanji (China originated letter) itself has meanings so the amount of information "per letter" can be more. Even with 14 letters, it is possible to express something in Japanese.

A popular Japanese blogger Chika Watanabe showed the English/Japanese difference on tweets by using real tweets [J] last month. In the article, an example tweet by Tim O'Reilly,

IMO a SXSW panel worth voting for: Book Publishing, The New Ecosystem http://bit.ly/4nyCSG (registration required to vote)

which is 122 letters, can be translated if in Japanese like this,

思うにSXSWパネルは投票の価値有。出版、新エコシステム　http://bit.ly/4nyCSG　（投票には要登録）

which is 59 letters.

Probably there are some languages which is more difficult to write in short than English (German?), and I guess Chinese could be more descriptive than Japanese in the same number of letters.

# [Update 2009-10-12] Famous Taiwanese Hacker Audrey Tang explained how Chinese tweets can convey a lot of information in compare with English. Quite interesting.

If Twitter was designed 10 years ago, it was not counted by number of letters but by number of bytes, then 140 bytes for Japanese may fall into around 40-50 letters.

[Update 2011-02-24] Chutter.jp seemed to cease in September 2010.

Author Information  @akky(Akky AKIMOTO) is one of the first pro-bloggers in Japan [J]. He also leads Asiajin, writes for Japan Times, does consultation for foreign companies interested in entering Japanese web market.

Tags: Japan, Joke // 9 Comments »

  • http://asiajin.com/ Serkan Toto

    Twitter is actually more “difficult” for Germans to use than for people using it in English. The words are significantly longer in German on average.

  • http://despuesdegoogle.com/2009/09/28/chuitter-el-nano-twitter-14-caracteres/ despuesdegoogle » Blog Archive » Chuitter, el nano Twitter: 14 caracteres

    [...] Clon japonés (¿cómo no?) de Twitter, del que copia look y funcionamiento. Lo nuevo: un 90% más de brevedad. De 140 caracteres a sólo 14. Minimalismo oriental, ¿quién sabe?, hubiese podido funcionar si Twitter no se hubiese convertido ya en estándar de facto en la red y en nuestros esquemas psicológicos: somos animales de costumbres. Aunque el reduccionismo de la escritura japonesa justifica el invento; de hecho, la inauguración del servicio en Japón está arrasando. [...]

  • http://asiajin.com/blog/2009/09/29/the-world-shortest-url-shortener-using-international-domain-name/ Asiajin » The World Shortest URL Shortener Using International Domain Name

    [...] Domain Name Posted on September 29th, 2009 by Akky Akimoto Yesterday I introduced a crazy 14 letters twitter clone and how much Japanese are obsessed with smallness. And today I am amazed [...]

  • http://www.davidasikin.com/blog/lang/en-us/2009/09/30/japan-reaction-to-twitter-chuitter Japan Says Chuitter: Twitterへの日本の反撃「ちゅいったー」 | 豚カツうまっ！！

    [...] users to push their creativity by writing short poem, such as haikus. Read the full story on Asiajin blog. Tags Categories strange, web [...]

  • http://www.digitaleastasia.com/2009/09/30/chuitter-is-japans-version-of-twitter-but-much-much-shorter/ Digital East Asia » Blog Archive » Chuitter Is Japan’s Version of Twitter But Much Much Shorter

    [...] on Asiajin, there is uncertainty whether this service is intended as a serious competitor to Twitter — [...]

  • http://asiajin.com/blog/2009/10/03/japans-first-twitter-novel-book-is-on-the-way/ Asiajin » Japan’s First Twitter Novel Book Is On The Way

    [...] I recently wrote on another article, Japanese can convey roughly doubled information in the same 140 letters limit to English. I cannot translate it within 140 in [...]

  • http://asiajin.com/blog/2010/01/23/twitter-japan-enables-retweet-button/ Asiajin » Twitter Japan Enables Retweet Button

    [...] nature, Japanese can convey more than doubled information with the same 140 letters than English, so many of Japanese tweets have more room to add comments with “unofficial” RT. Many [...]

  • http://whcsm.wordpress.com/2010/02/22/we-do-not-tweet-we-plurk/ We do not Tweet, We Plurk « Something more than Facebook & Twitter

    [...] since the “14 words limitation” made me wordless and could talk only like a poet. (see this) Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Plurk like you would TweetHow to Embed Plurk [...]

  • http://asiajin.com/blog/2010/06/10/twitter-mobile-version-now-limits-140-bytes-not-letters/ Asiajin » Twitter Mobile Version Now Limits 140 “Bytes” Not “letters”

    [...] At the same time, mobile.twitter.com seems to accept maximum 140 bytes, which had been 140 letters. It is the same for English users but as one Japanese letters (in UTF-8) uses 3-4 bytes, now you can only make about 40 letters tweet. (I once wrote how much Japanese 140 letters can express complicate things.) [...]

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