AutoTweet each time someone reads an article on your Blog... How to connect Blogger.com to Twitter

I'm assuming you know what Twitter is... one of the things it's good at is letting you talk (tweet) to your followers and to the world.
Now all those bloggers out there want, no need, to tell everyone that they've posted a new article on their blog - and for that HootSuite can be set up to automatically poll your blog and Tweet about any new postings (uses the RSS feed feature): http://hootsuite.com/account?section=web-feed

Now what if you want to show your Tweets on your Blog?
Then add an html gadget to your page and paste the following:
<div id="twitter_div"><h2 style="display:none;" class="sidebar-title">HTT Twitter Updates</h2><ul id="twitter_update_list"></ul><a id="twitter-link" style="display:block;text-align:right;" href="http://twitter.com/HandyTechTipper">follow me on Twitter</a></div><script src="http://twitter.com/javascripts/blogger.js" type="text/javascript"></script><br /><script src="http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/HandyTechTipper.json?callback=twitterCallback2&count=5" type="text/javascript"></script>

Also, Blogger.com has a gadget called "Twikut" that shows your last few Twitters on your Blog's page.

Now what if you want to AutoTweet each time someone reads an article on your Blog? Let's see if we can explain this WhatIs and HowTo:
eg: "AutoTweetRead - Blog_Title - http://bit.ly/1hOABc"

This would be a way of advertising the articles on your blog on Twitter - where the Twitters' frequency is relative to the number of times each is read.

All credits go to John K Weber for thinking up the concept and then creating the mechanism to autoTweet.

Here's a detailed description of how to connect Blogger.com to Twitter for each read:
An AutoTweet will be created whenever any blog article is read.
It is written in php and is extremely easy to set up (refer to code in zip file below).
1) Download and unzip the file, then
2) Edit the php file and change username:password to your own Twitter usename and password, then
3) Change the text that you want to be displayed on your tweet eg: "AutoTweet: Some1 has read blog: xyz@blogger.com: Blog Title XYZ"
4) Save the file to somethingyoulike.php
5) Upload it to a trusted server of your choice

Then, make your blog call this script that will AutoTweet your blog article.
If you use Blogger.com then place it in an HTML/JavaScript gadget and call it with the following line of code:

{Note: join the following lines into 1 line}
< img alt="Tweet this Referrer URL" src="http://siteofyourpreference.com/somethingyoulike.php
>

That's it.... whenever this file is called it should send a Tweet to your Twitter account automatically with the article name and the URL to the article.

Note: the reader's browser needs to load images for the script to trigger the AutoTweet.

Here's the php code: Download and then unzip: AutoTweetImage.zip

Thanks John K Weber gr8 job! I agree with you "It is amazing that Twitter seemed to be such a useless tool and now it seems to be one of the biggest internet phenomenons. Go figure....."

If you think Facebook is gr8 - then go give Twitter a try - you will be blown away!

Beware of scammers using false logos eg: SolarQuip

Beware of the usage of similar but false logos: A colleague thought he was getting product that was SABS approved and services from the same company that was a member of an "Association" - he was wrong.

It looked like the SABS logo; and the web site stated they were a "Member Solar Energy Society of Southern Africa your Protection".

BUT, the SABS logo is different and their products are not SABS approved, and there's no association called "Solar Energy Society of Southern Africa" - it's called "Sustainable Energy Society of Southern Africa" http://www.sessa.org.za/.

Here are the logos (see for yourself here: http://www.solarquip.co.za/):

SABS logo: vs false logo used:
The SESSA "Sustainable Energy Society of Southern Africa" logo: vs non-existant ("Solar Energy Society of Southern Africa"):

I wonder what complaining to the Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa (ASA) http://www.asasa.org.za/ and SABS will result in?


I sympathise with my colleague and I too consider this to be false advertising of SolarQuip's products (solar panels and solar geysers) and services.

Mail them (Solarq@mweb.co.za) and let them know that this is not acceptable!

Tell your friends to watch out...

Maybe some bad advertising will make them change their tune??!!

Update on 16June2010:

Watch out or, at least, be aware: #WTF Geyser's element has just blown <3 years after installation... 5 year geyser warranty, but only 3 months on the element! #FFS #RipOff
http://www.xstream.co.za/warranty.htm

Contact.Us@capetown.gov.za really works - I've tried it and it works :)

If you need anything done by the Cape Town Municipality then why not give their ticket driven service centre a try? It worked for me - no phone calls, no standing in queues, no waiting call centre queues.. no queues at all - just one email and the problem was sorted.

Actually, 2 emails: 1 for the request, and another, a reply to say thanks to them for such awesome service!

We had problems with street lights and 2 days after the said email, the lights were working again!

Give it a try: send an email to Contact.Us@capetown.gov.za with exact details of the problem and they will reply with a reference number and a couple of days later problem solved.

Their web page is here if you need more info: http://www.capetown.gov.za

Good luck