Twitter is a micro blogging app which allows you to broadcast tiny SMS-ish messages to your friends and contacts. I had a first hand experience of this technology when Google integrated Twitter with Google Maps during the current election primaries. I was totally awed by it’s power and concept.
The Wordpress forum has a keenly discussed thread on embedding Twitter to a Wordpress site. And by the looks of it, the last word hasn’t been said yet. (Last I saw there were about 61 comments in there!)
There are numerous plugins available which promise to integrate your blog with your twitter account but along with it comes the added trade-off of database and scalability issues.
There are two ways you can implement Twitter in your blog with minus the extra flab.
A. RSS
In the Twitter home page, on the left below you will see a link for RSS. Copy the link location. In the Wordpress dashboard widget section, activate an RSS widget. Paste the copied RSS link in there with a suitable heading and save it. You are all set.
B. Badge
Look for the Badge link in the center below. (http://twitter.com/badges). On clicking it, you will be presented with couple of options like Facebook, Blogger etc. Choose the ‘Other’ option. We want the plain vanilla HTML\JavaScript. (There are other options like Flash but I am not sure about how secure they are on Wordpress platform).
After you have copied the relevant code, in Wordpress enable a text widget and paste your code there. Enter a suitable heading, save the changes.
This is how I have implemented Twitter on TechBanyan. (Check out the bottom right most widget) .
Best Implementation
Ideally speaking I would like to implement it the way Elliot Jay Stocks has done it. Best from what I have seen so far. Check it out on his website, it’s on the top right, from here.
I covered Elliot Jay Stocks earlier once on account of his exceptional web designing skills.
Interesting tid-bit: Twitter has been phenomenally popular and has managed to create quite a following. However the service has not earned even a single penny for its creators. The application has been funded quite generously by its VCs.
