Twitter’s character limit and what’s next: While We’re Waiting…

Yesterday was one of those days when it was hard to focus on being a sports fan. Roseburg is a small town about an hour south of me here in Eugene, Oregon. Like how the Chardon shooting rocked Northeast Ohio, the tragic events yesterday unfortunately sent a shiver down the spine of every Oregonian.

Most of the day, I searched desperately for updates on Twitter. I refreshed time and time again for the quotes from President Obama’s press conference. I yearned desperately for it to be just a terrible, terrible nightmare. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones, just an hour away, but a whole other world apart from those suffering in Roseburg.

I hope there is a way we as a society can solve this terrible, terrible situation of non-stop gun violence. I don’t know how, but it really, really is terrible. It has affected so many precious communities. Sports can be a facade from this harsh reality. They can lift people up and inspire them. So with a heavy heart and prolonged sadness for Roseburg, I’m subbing in for Craig Lyndall’s While We’re Waiting spot today. Here we go.

The 140-character limit: Re/code had the scoop earlier in the week that Twitter is discussing a new product that will enable users to send updates longer than 140 characters. That limit, a staple of the old days when Twitter was very text message-based and bound by 160 characters anyway, has been a hallmark and key characteristic of the site for long-time users. The new product, perhaps leaning on the side of longer form content, could position Twitter against up-and-coming Medium, a blogging platform that just raised $57 million earlier in the week.

Obviously, Twitter is being than Medium, but the issue continues to be how it can innovate and monetize. The scale is there, even if the number of active users hasn’t quite increased at the same rate as Facebook or Instagram. But the pressure will certainly be on returning CEO Jack Dorsey to find new ways to make Twitter relevant in the eyes of the consumer and the advertiser. One post that I also enjoyed this week was by Fortune’s Erin Griffith, who reminded readers of why Dorsey was fired in the first tenure. She describes Dorsey as a Steve Jobs-wannabe, a rejected revolutionary who returns to become a societal icon. While that’s certainly a lofty goal, I know that I’m an avid Twitter user currently, and I’m anxious to see what’s next for one of my most-used products.

Women in sports Twitter: As useful and influential as Twitter can be, it can also be a very, very dark place for women, especially those women in the sports industry. Julie DiCaro, a Chicago sports radio anchor, wrote about her perspective at The Cauldron this week. Amid the recent Patrick Kane rape investigation, and her must-read reporting on the situation, she’s been the target of threats, hateful comments, and non-stop Twitter barraging. Essentially, if you’re a female and you’re an influencer in sports Twitter, then you run the risk of receiving oodles of the same condescending messages that DiCaro received as well.

Is this something that Twitter can solve in its next round of updates? Or, this is some horrible, horrible 2015 culture thing that just can’t change no matter what? This is bad. And a tremendous shoutout goes to DiCaro for writing about her experience and pushing out a huge call to action.

Bill Simmons is back: The Sports Guy has returned. With October arriving, Simmons has now started his new deal with HBO and is already sharing lots of podcast links over on a new Tumblr-based website on billsimmonspodcast.com. His new HBO show is slated to begin in 2016. There were rumblings before he wants to produce short-form video content to compete with YouTube, too. Where else he might be writing appears to be unknown for the moment. We all likely have our thoughts on Simmons, and he’s certainly evolved — for better or for worse — over the years. But there’s no doubt he revolutionized the sports blogging landscape. Here’s one tweet that I sent out back when the Simmons/ESPN fallout all was occuring.

Amazing how many sports bloggers were influenced to start blogging or blog in a certain way because of Bill Simmons. Almost everyone.

— Jacob L. Rosen (@JacobLRosen) May 8, 2015

Sports Analytics Blog update: Earlier this week, site founder Jonathan Gordon shared an update about the status of the website. FanVsFan has suddenly collapsed, leaving the site broken and the contributors at a loss for what to do next. The archives are still accessible on the Wayback Machine, but with all of us being so busy, we’re not certain what’s going to happen now. In the meanwhile, I’ve posted some of my old types of features on my Tumblr page. This week, I wrote an “Intro to sports analytics” and a new roundup post. So if you’re one of those folks interested in sports analytics, I’d encourage you to check out those links for now.

Assorted random links from around the Internet: I see a lot of links scroll by on Twitter all the time. I’m kinda known for always curating something or another. So here are a variety of sports-related things that I’ve seen lots of people sharing this week.

• Gare Joyce, Sports Net: David Levin’s long skate from Israel to Sudbury
• Kevin Kleps, Crain’s Cleveland: The Indians’ playoff push is officially over, so it’s time to look forward to 2016
• Mark J. Burns, Forbes: New Digital Age Of Influence: How Lana Berry Landed In Sports Twitter
• John Ourand, Sports Business Journal: Musburger has no plans to stop casual references to gambling
• Drew Magary, Deadspin: I Tried Daily Fantasy Sports And It Is Evil
• Seth Rosenthal, SB Nation: Lords of Catan: Meet the surprising stars of the board game that’s taken over the world