Author(s): 

Steve Ganz

In 140 characters: 

Publish is microsyntax for publishing specific tweets using a control character like ('>') to other applications like Facebook ('>fb').

Description: 

The idea behind Publish is that users want to publish only specific tweets to specific third-party applications individually instead of all or nothing.

Existing Implementation: 

One implementation of using a publish mark has been implemented in the Facebook application Selective Twitter. It uses the hashtag of '#fb' to designate specific tweets for publishing to a user's Facebook status.

It's been suggested that applications have used ('@') to direct tweets towards a certain account (need examples) which would, in turn, handle the publishing to the appropriate third-party site.

Problems:

Since the hashtag ('#') is used to indicate a topic for the content of a specific tweet, and the content of a specific tweet might not necessarily be about the topic, it might be better to use a unique control character for the publish mark.

Using ('@') repurposes the existing standard of addressing a specific Twitter user and requires third-party applications to create an account to act explicitly as a middle man.

Alternative Suggestions:

Choosing a unique control character would eliminate the confusion inherent in using established control characters.

• ('>')
  • Pros: User friendly, intuitive, easy to parse.
  • Cons: Not semantically correct, currently used to offset RT from comments.
• ('|') 
  • Pros: Semantically correct.
  • Cons: Not intuitive, nearly impossible to distinguish from I.
• }
  • Pros: Shows some directional movement towards the intended service; user friendly; easy to parse.
  • Cons: Somewhat ugly. The spacing between this character and other letters can be awkward.
• ~
  • Pros: Unique. No prior use on Twitter.
  • Cons: ?

Each third-party application would be responsible for picking their own code to follow the control character.

Examples:

• LinkedIn
  • First day at the new job! >li
• Facebook
  • Ack! Freaking out about my 10 year high school reunion this weekend. >fb
• MySpace
  • Check out my band this Tuesday night at Slim's! >ms