14 DAY TRIAL // Twitter has been around for a few years now and it's become a very useful tool for a lot of people. But Twitter is a company, first and foremost, and it has to start making some money at some point.
That point is now, Twitter isn't handing out any more freebies. Well, it is, but you're going to have to put up with some limitations.
Twitter is now introducing Twttr, the basic, free version of the service you know and love. It's very much like the regular Twitter, you can talk about your launch, join hashtag revolutions and generally be an involved citizen of the world.
But you'll have to do it without vowels. Granted, many users won't see this as limitation, but rather a bonus feature. By ditching vowels, you can cram in more words in your message.
Twitter has always been about brevity, the 140-character limit has forced people to get to the point fast. Now, without vowels, users will have to be even more concise, leading to even better tweets, or twts.
If however, you should ever feel the unnatural urge to use vowels in your tweets, you have to pony up $5, €3.90 for the full Twitter service.
"We're doing this because we believe that by eliminating vowels, we'll encourage a more efficient and 'dense' form of communication. We also see an opportunity to diversify our revenue stream," Twitter explained.
Twitter is not unreasonable though, while vowels are off limits, "y" will be free to use and will remain free forever.
"Because our users come first, we believe that 'Y' should always be free to everyone — today and forever. You'll notice in the Twttr example above, the 'y' is clearly visible. Also, the vowels in URLs will be also be free for everyone, forever," it said.