Feeding the addiction
So I have a twitter addiction. That’s right I like tweeting. I recently surpassed my 2000th tweet and my 100th follower (that wasn’t a spam bot). In fueling this addiction I’ve created 2 twitter bots: Acropoll and SandCTweet. Last night I put the finishing touches on a plug in for Wordpress that I started a long while ago. This morning I submitted it to Wordpress.org.
The point of Bird Feeder is simple. Nearly all the twitter plug ins I’ve tried do more then I’ve needed. So Bird Feeder does the one thing I wanted: tweet about a new blog post. That’s it nothing else. It probably won’t ever do anything else. Though I’m sure I’ll keep it updated with bug fixes or better ways of doing things when I get the time.
Speaking of bugs, one of the first users found something I over looked: It tweeted every time a post was updated. Even if it was already published. It was a simple mistake that has now been remedied.
Jeremy Sanchez, owner of Metaicon also runs a URL shortening service called shortna.me. He set up a API for me to call when tweeting so that it doesn’t use the full URL in the tweet. Of course this is to help keep the character count down.
So head over to Wordpress.org and check out Bird Feeder.
Nice plugin! Is there a way to specify the url…So it goes to a certain page rather then the blog post page. The problem is I have a blog that is called into a iframe, so when I make a new post, the bird feeder url goes just to that webpage which is outside the iframe.
Thanks!
Comment by sf — December 31, 2008 @ 1:56 am
Also bird feeder not working from the wordpress quick press or the iphone app???
Comment by sf — December 31, 2008 @ 3:36 am
As far as changing the url… it’s based on the permalink for the blog post you published. I didn’t think that people would be loading their blogs into an iFrame. It might be something I add in the future. I don’t want it to get bloated with features so we’ll see.
I bet the reason it doesn’t work from quick press or the iphone app is because it doesn’t set the status from draft to publish but rather goes right to publish. I’ll have to look into that.
Thanks for the input!
Comment by ajaswa — December 31, 2008 @ 4:12 am
Thanks! Ya changing the URL address would be super helpful.oh well but I’ll check back about the iPhone and quick post issue
Comment by Sf — December 31, 2008 @ 3:46 pm
I think I would rather put in an option to allow the use of the “Blog URL” from the Wordpress settings. I’d rather not allow for an arbitrary URL to be placed in there. It could turn into someone trying to mislead folks.
Would that work for you?
Comment by ajaswa — December 31, 2008 @ 8:06 pm
“allow the use of the “Blog URL” from the Wordpress settings.”
Andrew i’m not sure what that is, Meaning back to the blog homepage not to the post’s page, right??
That would be at least better. The blog is without a header so that would be the only wired thing, Since its placed in a iframe, and header is outside the iframe.
Thanks! Happy New year.
Comment by sf — December 31, 2008 @ 9:46 pm
Yup that’s it, it’ll point to where ever you installed the blog. For example: if you installed your blog to http://example.com/myweblog/ then it would point there. If you installed it to http://example.com then it’ll point there.
I may have to do something fancy to get Quickpress and the iPhone app to work.
I’ll keep this updated though.
Comment by ajaswa — January 1, 2009 @ 4:09 am
Alright Sf, I updated Bird Feeder to 1.1.5 which now has a check box to do what you want. Let me know if you have any problems with it.
Comment by ajaswa — January 1, 2009 @ 2:52 pm
Awesome!!! Thank you. I keep checking back about Quickpress and the iPhone app to work. Thank again!
Comment by sf — January 2, 2009 @ 1:16 am
Andrew,
the plugin seems to be working a treat, my Twitter account now actually has something in it :)
Cheers
Comment by Vince — January 3, 2009 @ 1:39 pm