Analyzing my love for Twitter

Are you on Twitter?

If you are not then you are probably being left behind by the Web 2.0 boom. Here are some official stats as of March 2008:

Total Users: 1+ million
Total Active Users: 200,000 per week
Total Twitter Messages: 3 million/day

So why is everyone rushing to Twitter? There are a lot of varied opinions regarding this but personally I can compare this to the SMS (text) phenomena. The same reason why people would rather send SMS rather than call or use MMS -- ease of use, low cost and its highly effective.

People are finding it easier to share stuff using Twitter than by blogging. For example; I have just posted to Twitter: "Why Twitter than blog: ease of use, takes less time and its highly effective" rather than writing this blog article.

People then would just respond to my Twitter post rather than leaving comments on my blog and alternately I can reply back on Twitter to elaborate on my original post.

This is basically the same idea why more pro-bloggers are using Twitter to promote their articles -- Twitter is much more pro-active compared to blogs and since its being shared in real-time[1], the sense of urgency makes Twitter the most successful medium for link-baiting thus making it a perfect tool for any web enabled promotion.

Finally its fun :D

If you're like me who lived through the IRC and BBS era, the IM craze and the SMS revolution then Twitter is just another form of those.

It's all about sharing stuff which ranges from useless uttering to getting the exclusive info where to get the coolest stuff before everyone else has them!

Side notes:
[1] Technically speaking there is no such thing as real-time. The proper to term is just-in-time or JIT.

The Missing Twitter Badge

Where is the Twitter Badge? Yes, the link it seems to be missing on my Twitter page! However we good news, we saved the last known URL of the official Twitter Badge generator.

Get The Official Twitter Badge here and use TwitSnap to super-charge it!

Twitter reveals real reason for the downtime!

Biting more than you can chew?

Basic Troubleshooting

Is TwitSnap not working on your site? Read the following checklist first before panicking!

1. Is the domain name submitted properly?
   If your blog/site is hosted via Blogger, Wordpress, Googlepages and the likes then you must include the subdomain when registering. Also take note the domain name must not end is a slash ( /).
   
   If you messed up the first time then don't worry, you can register again using the same email you used before.
   
   To clarify, we only require the registration to track usage of our service so that we can prioritize popular sites later as a VIP service so make sure to register with a valid email address where we can contact you.
   
   
2. Is the script properly copied?
   The script starts with <!-- TWITSNAP --> and ends with <!-- END TWITSNAP --> so if any of those where missing then you are missing a part of the script.
   
   
3. Is the script located between the </body> tag and </html> tag?
   This is very important since the script parses the entire HTML body and to avoid conflict with itself and other script. Plus this makes sure it will work with IE7+ browser (don't ask, we don't know why MS needs it to be there).
   
   Placing the code on any other part of the site may still work but we cannot guarantee this.
   
   
4. Do you use JavaScript blocking utilities?
   Browser add-ons like Adblock, NoScript and the likes may mistakenly identify TwitSnap as an Ad script.
   
   For the record, the script will not embed any Ads on your site -- ever! We however do not control the contents being posted by Twitter users if they contain ads or not.
   
   
5. Is there any other script causing errors?
   Check your other scripts and widgets if its causing any errors. You can check this by removing the TwitSnap Script first then browse your site and check for indication of a script errors.
   
   Other slow loading scripts can also affect TwitSnap's performance since it makes sure all the entire page has fully loaded before parsing the HTML body. If another script ha rendered the page on an infinite wait state then TwitSnap will never load.
   
   Just remove the other offending script if you want TwitSnap (of course you do!)
   
   
6. If all else fails file a bug report and send us the complete URL of the page/site thats giving you problems. We will try to fix our script as much as possible to work with any site out there.
   
   

Be the first 100

We like to invite everyone to be one of the first 100 TwitSnap enable site. A link to your site will be immortalized on our exclusive permanent blog roll!

Super Charge Your Twitter Badge

Did you know that TwitSnap works seamlessly with Twitter Badge? Just add the JavaScript version of the badge to your site and TwitSnap will be happy to enhance it for you!

Shouts to supporters of TwitSnap

Many thanks to those who are first to try, endorse and Twittered about TwitSnap.

@twtooltrack, @twittea, @konterfai, @sugree, @twittes, and @LoicHay (Tracked via TweetScan on 06/06/08 PST)

Of course more importantly, thanks to those who signed up already. There will be a special shouts for the first 100 sign-up and will forever be immortalized on TwitSnap blog roll :D

Wordpress How-To

How to install TwitSnap to Wordpress

1. You must have access to Wordpress installation files. Hosted sites at wordpress.com will not be able to use this guide.
2. Access your wordpress site directory and go to sub directory wp-content/themes.
3. Open the folder of the current theme you are using, in this example I'm using the default theme therefore I'm accessing wp-content/themes/default directory.
   
4. Edit the footer.php file.
5. Insert the TwitSnap code between the </body> and </html> tag.
6. Save the changes on footer.php file.
7. Do the same for all other themes you are using.
8. Enjoy TwitSnap on Wordpress!
   

Old Site Redirected

Old users of TwitSnap who registered via the old site web-edge.appspot.com/twitsnap will now be redirected to www.TwitSnap.com. However the registration data was not migrated so please re-register to the new site (takes less than a minute) and install the new script.

Issue #1 & 3 Resolved

Way back when we first started we had 3 issues posted on our old blog:
#1 - Activation email bounces
#2 - Long URLs
#3 - Slowness

I'm are happy to announce today that 2 issues were resolved, the email bounces and slowness.

Activation via email was removed, instead we just send a confirmation email plus the instructions on how to install the widget on your site. Even if the email bounces the instruction/how-to is still available to users here on our blog.

I addressed the slowness issue by caching the most recent user status then display the cache first which gives that appearance of speed while another event is fired to fetch the user status via Twitter's API which caused us the previous slowness issue. When the API returns the newest status we then update the cache and the display which appears transparent to the user.

We're currently still working on Issue #2 which was held back since we prioritized the setup of our domain and adding issue tracker support.

I hope you like the new fixes, please send us feedbacks so we can make this service better!

Blogger How-To

How to install TwitSnap on Blogger

1. Login to your Blogger account.
2. Select Manage: Layout
3. Select Edit HTML from the top nav-menu.
4. Insert the TwitSnap Widget code between the </body> and </html> tags.
   Why specifically between these tags? Because TwitSnap modifies the HTML code between <body> and </body> tags so by putting the code outside the body will make sure the code doesn't modify itself!
   
5. Save the template.
6. Create your first TwitSnap enabled post like this: @twitsnap has now a Twitter account!
   

We have a domain!

TwitSnap now has a domain, you can visit http://www.TwitSnap.com and get your free widget!