This Twitter look-alike requires 1,400 characters

Sometimes it's hard to know why people do things. But it's easy to see why some creative minds have come up with Woofer.

This is a site whose look bears a remarkable resemblance to Twitter--right down to its pale-blue colors. But its conceit is to create an entirely new form of blogging: "macroblogging." You see, Woofer requires every post to have a minimum of 1,400 characters. Yes, minimum. This, of course, contrasts with Twitter's "microblogging" platform, which limits users to 140 characters per tweet.

This means that finally, the world has a site that devotes itself to the full, deep gamut of people's literary skills.

Naturally, it is hard to quote a woof in full. However, woofs seem to vary between disquisitions on Twitter, such as this from the culturally monikered Sendafart, to this peculiar effort, consisting of the word "aaaaaaaaaaaaa" and purporting to come from the quill of former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

Woofer has a clear link explaining in almost 1,400 characters that it is not affiliated with Twitter. The link reads: "Is this Twitter?" Click on it, and you see, in very large type, "No," coupled with a link to the site's legal notice.

However, some have complained that once they create a woof, the site somehow manages to post their real Twitter profile picture.

Woofer is run by a concern called Join the Company, an organization that claims to "build entertaining Web sites that change the way people use the Internet."

When you look at the site's three principles of woofing, you begin to believe that Woofer truly will be the salvation of the language: "1. Be eloquent. 2. Use adverbs. 3. DEA (don't ever abbreviate)," the site says.

I dream of a world of macrobloggers who write in full, who never use acronyms, and who create an online oasis for complete literary expression in a world of dogs eating dogs and merely offering sound bites. But let's see how long it takes before Woofer gets caught in a flock of terse legal complaints.