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Site Update: New Blog Alerts on Twitter

They say RSS is dead. Whether that's true or not I don't know, but I have noticed that I personally have been launching my RSS reader a lot less frequently since I made Twitter my primary tool of distraction.

It seems only right that new posts on codestore are announced not only via RSS but also on my Twitter account.

Using Twitter's API and the jTwitter Java library I managed to make this automated by adding 3 lines of code to the MetaWeblog-handling agent in the template. Now, when I press publish from within Windows Live Writer, it not only publishes to the site and RSS but also to Twitter. No need to login or open a browser or the Notes client. Magic.

Comments

    • avatar
    • Dragon Cotterill
    • Wed 20 Jan 2010 05:09 AM

    I've basically abandoned Twitter. Too much noise, not enough signal. My RSS reader of choice is http://www.netvibes.com with it I monitor a whole slew of feeds. All my Domino stuff is on one tab and easy to keep track of.

      • avatar
      • Jake Howlett
      • Wed 20 Jan 2010 05:40 AM

      I find that to get the noise level down you have to stop following those who make it. If you're picky about who you follow then there's no reason the signal can't be clear.

      Either way, even if I didn't use it, other people do use it and so it's worth putting links out there...

      Hide the rest of this thread

        • avatar
        • Dragon Cotterill
        • Wed 20 Jan 2010 07:11 AM

        My point exactly. If all you ever put up there is updates for your blog, then you are effectively giving out noise, since the updates are on RSS. So you get removed. And if nobody is following you, what is the point of broadcasting on Twitter?

      1. I think anything that can be said in 140 characters or less IS noise. I've been on Twitter for a while now and have created a couple of lists with just a few people on them who's blogs and podcasts I love. They don't Tweet much but when they do it has been of no interest to me.

        Answer me this, if RSS is dead, how would you tweet this blog post or even the comment I'm responding to?

        Some will say it's because I'm old but I don't think that's it at all. I think Twitter is shallow and I just want to get into the deep end ... maybe even over my head.

        It's just what seems to be true for me.

          • avatar
          • Jake Howlett
          • Thu 21 Jan 2010 03:40 AM

          To me it's just another form of RSS (which I don't personally think is dead at all). The tweets I like are the links to interesting web pages. It's like a shared bookmarks if you will.

          What I don't like are the cryptic messages or the plain boring ones ("I'm at the airport" -- who cares!). Although I'm guilty of posting irrelevant twats too, but like to think mine are at least of slight interest/amusement.

          But hey, each to their own.

      • avatar
      • glyn
      • Wed 20 Jan 2010 07:36 AM

      I agree ... flooded and apparently my account has been hijacked by some iPhone game...? what a waste of time...

    • avatar
    • Jono
    • Wed 20 Jan 2010 06:46 AM

    Glad it's not just me Dragon... I just can't be doing with twitter, but I understand it's good to spread the word Jake... Good luck on your .NET advendture.

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Written by Jake Howlett on Wed 20 Jan 2010

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CodeStore is all about web development. Concentrating on Lotus Domino, ASP.NET, Flex, SharePoint and all things internet.

Your host is Jake Howlett who runs his own web development company called Rockall Design and is always on the lookout for new and interesting work to do.

You can find me on Twitter and on Linked In.

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