twitterfeed now supports posting to Ping.fm

In addition to directly posting to twitter and identica/laconica, twitterfeed now supports posting to Ping.fm, which means you can use twitterfeed and Ping.fm to send blog and other RSS updates to the many social networking services Ping.fm supports, all in one go!

Here’s how it works:

• when logged into twitterfeed and creating a new feed, the dropdown box at the top of the screen now contains ping.fm as an option
• the next thing you need to do is enter your Ping.fm application key. If you’re already logged into Ping.fm, you can find this at http://ping.fm/key/, or there’s a link called “Application Keys” on your Ping.fm dashboard
• click on the “get available methods” link. This will populate a dropdown box with all the methods that you  have set up in Ping.fm, so you need to have set up at least one service/method combination in Ping.fm
• select the method you want to post to (status, microblog, or blog), and the rest of the options are identical to a normal feed to twitter or identica
• if you selected “blog”, twitterfeed will send a long version of the content, while for “status” and “microblog” methods, messages are created and shortened in exactly the same way they are currently for twitter/identica

.. and that’s pretty much everything there’s to it. At the moment, items that are posted to twitter/identica via Ping.fm using twitterfeed will appear as “from Ping.fm” in twitter and identica – this may or may not change in future, I’m currently discussing options with the guys at Ping.fm.

Please note that this is functionality is brand new, so there may be issues I haven’t foreseen. If you do come across any problems, or have any suggestions to improve the twitterfeed/Ping.fm integration, please let me know at http://getsatisfaction.com/twitterfeed

zi.ma URL shortener now available

Just a quick note to say that zi.ma have now whitelisted twitterfeed, so I’ve added it to the list of URL shorteners available – as of now, it can be used in twitterfeed to shorten your links. If you provide your zi.ma username and password when editing or creating a feed in twitterfeed, this information is passed to the API, and any links shortened by twitterfeed will then be viewable (stats, etc.) when you log into your zi.ma account.

As usual, if you find problems, please report them at http://getsatisfaction.com/twitterfeed.

no more is.gd URL shortener support

After a number of users reported that their feeds weren’t being shortened by is.gd anymore, I talked to the people at is.gd, and they have introduced API limits which make using it with twitterfeed impossible. As is.gd doesn’t want to support the levels of API usage that twitterfeed creates, they have asked for is.gd to be removed from twitterfeed. All feeds that were previously using id.gd have been reset to use tinyurl, but you can of course log into twitterfeed and select a different shortener from the ones available.

Apologies for the inconvenience, but I’m only acting for is.gd, who want their API to be used only for low volume applications.

tr.im added to twitterfeed as available URL shortener

Following on from my previous post about additional URL shorteners, tr.im now have provided twitterfeed with an API key so it should be able to get past any API limits they have in place. As a result, tr.im is now available as a URL shortening option when you create or edit a feed in twitterfeed.

One  note: tr.im have asked that I only use tr.im for users which provide their username/password so the URLs are attached to their account. If you select tr.im as the shortener without providing this information when you set up a feed, twitterfeed will use an alternative URL shortener. If you do provide the tr.im user infomation (and there’s no reason why you wouldn’t, since that gives you access to all their tools), then twitterfeed will use this information when creating the tr.im short URL, and you’ll be able to track/view these URLs in your tr.im account.

twitterfeed is runner-up in the mashable bloggers choice award 2008

I meant to post this a couple of days ago, but things were just too hectic – anyway, I’m very happy to say that twitterfeed ended up runner-up (behind ping.fm) in the social networking applications category at the Mashable Blogger’s Choice Awards: http://mashable.com/2008/12/10/announcing-bloggers-choice-open-web-awards-winners/

Given that twitterfeed is a one-man operation run entirely in my spare time, I think that’s not too bad

URL shortener updates, and support for cli.gs and urlborg

Earlier today I set live an update to add additional features to URL shortening. The changes in detail are:

• updated the SnipURL functionality to use their new API. This enables you to post short URLs under your SnipURL username. When you select SnipURL as your URL shortener in twitterfeed, you now have a textbox where you can enter your SnipURL username, and twitterfeed will use this when creating short links.
• similarly, bit.ly have added additional functionality, and twitterfeed now lets you take advantage of this. Again, if you select bit.ly as your URL shortener in twitterfeed, you get an option to provide your Login and API key. If provided, this info will be used by twitterfeed when creating short URLs, so these links will appear in your bit.ly account.
• Support for 2 more URL shorteners, cli.gs and urlborg. If you select either of these services in twitterfeed, you are able to provide your API key, and again all links will be posted using this information, and will therefore appear in their respective user accounts.

A couple of other requests for URL shorteners to be added are currently on hold – both tr.im and zi.ma have API limits which make them unsuitable for the amount and frequency of API calls that twitterfeed would make. I am talking to both of them, and if they are willing to whitelist twitterfeed then there’s a chance I’ll add support in the future.

Award season: please support twitterfeed

As it seems to be the award season right now, there’s an easy way you can support twitterfeed without spending any money – vote for us at the Mashable OWA awards (where we were shortlisted thanks to your kind nominations), and nominate us at the Crunchies. Embedded gadgets/links below should make this pretty painless, should you feel so inclined…

Cheers!
Mario.

To vote for twitterfeed at the OWA, just visit http://twitterfeed.com and click on the fairly obvious link (sorry, couldn’t get an iframe to work in WordPress for some reason..).

To nominate us for the Crunchies, click below..

two additional shorteners supported: POPrl and Adjix

twitterfeed now supports two additional URL shorteners, each offering something a little different from the ones already available:

• POPrl is a URL shrinking service that ranks the popularity of its URLs by tracking clicks (for more info see http://poprl.com)
• Adjix lets you earn revenue while you shrink your links, and track these links. If you select Adjix as your URL shortener, twitterfeed will ask you for your partner ID (so the links are created using your id, as otherwise they wouldn’t be linked to your account, and you wouldn’t earn any revenue or be able to track the links). You can get the Adjix partner ID from the “edit profile” section once logged in at http://adjix.com – if you enter this in the feed settings in twitterfeed, it will be included in any API calls made to Adjix.

As always – please let me know if you find any problems with this, preferably by posting at http://getsatisfaction.com/twitterfeed

twitterfeed now supports bit.ly, is.gd and urlShort

In response to popular demand, I’ve added three additional URL shorteners to twitterfeed (these are in addition to the existing ones – TinyURL, Tweetburner and SnipURL):

• bit.ly
• is.gd
• urlShort

Enjoy, and as ever, please report any issues/problems you find at http://getsatisfaction/twitterfeed.

support for posts to identi.ca/ laconica

Many people have requested twitterfeed support for laconica/ identi.ca, especially now identi.ca has a twitter-compatible API. I have today set live a change that should enable you to do this:

When you create a new feed, or edit an existing one, there is a dropdown control at the top which can be set to “laconica”. If so, this feed then posts to laconica instead of twitter. If you want the same feed to post to both laconica and twitter, you will need to set up 2 separate feeds in twitterfeed to do that (I implemented it like this so the whole structure of the site and back-end didn’t need to change).

Please note that I have only tested laconica posting to the identi.ca server, so have currently no idea if posting to other laconi.ca installations works. My own laconica installation isn’t currently working, but when I get a change to update it and get it work, I may do some testing. If you do have a working, up-to-date laconica installation, you could try posting to it by updating the server and api values in the feed settings, and let me know how you get on!

If your own laconica install is e.g. at http://laconica.yoursite.com, then enter “laconica.yoursite.com” in the Laconica server textbox, and leave the API path as “api”. If your laconica install is at http://yourserver.com/laconica, then enter “yourserver.com” in the Laconica server textbox, and “laconica/api” in the API path.

That’s the idea anyway – as I said, I have no idea if it will work, I only tested with the default identi.ca setting.