LittleSis is a latecomer to Twitter, and we’re still learning the ropes, but one thing is clear: microblogging makes nuanced argument difficult, but is quite effective for documenting simple facts and leads. What better model to mimic, then, for LittleSis’s much-needed analyst note system?
We’ve decided to modify Twitter’s format to make it more flexible for LittleSis analysts, thus feeding many birds with one worm:
- Notes let analysts keep memos — public or private — that make their own research easier and more complete. Notes are more useful when concise, but aren’t limited to Twitter’s 140 characters.
- Notes let analysts “alert” other analysts using Twitter’s @username format. Multiple analysts can be “alerted” within one note. A private note can only be viewed by its author and any analysts it alerts.
- Notes can link to any combination of entity, relationship, and list pages using a simple markup. For example, @entity:1 will create a link to Wal-Mart Stores, whereas @entity:1[biggest company in the world] will create a link to the biggest company in the world. @rel and @list work the same way.
- While notes are designed to the above needs, all of which LittleSis analysts have asked for, we encourage you to experiment with them and find new uses we haven’t thought of.
We hope the new note system, available as of this post, will strengthen the social layer on LittleSis, which is essential to keeping our data fresh, accurate, and relevant. Notes are still a work in progress, so let us know what you think!
PS: As you can see, we’ve also taken the opportunity to reshuffle our start page layout. Feedback about that is welcome too.