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May We Please Introduce WordTwit 2.0
Apr 11 2009 • Written By Duane Storey • 25 Comments

We started doing a few small changes to WordTwit the other day, expecting those changes to amount to no more than a bug release. In the last 24 hours though, we’ve ended up completely overhauling WordTwit to the point where it really has to be a major release. So without further ado, we’d like to introduce WordTwit 2.0.

WordTwit 2.0 incorporates several key features, the most prominent of which is the local generation of short URLs. If you use Twitter, chances are that you’re familiar with URL shortening services such as tinyurl.com and bit.ly. While those services work well for URL shortening, they have the disadvantage of not being branded to your site or your Twitter account. To that end, we’ve added the ability in WordTwit for your own WordPress installation to act as a URL shortener. So if you had a website with an address of www.duaner.org, WordTwit will let you generate short URLs of the form duaner.org/Xa.

You can also instruct WordTwit to use a different URL for URL shortening purposes. For example, if your website is at somereallylongdomainname.com, and you own shortname.org, you can configure WordTwit to use the latter for URL generation (assuming both point to the same location).

Wait, that’s not all! We’ve also added the ability to track the number of times each shortened URL is clicked — you can view these directly in the WordTwit administration panel. In addition, WordTwit can be configured to show a banner on all external links — from this banner visitors can follow you on Twitter and read your recent blog postings. You can see an example of the banner by following this WordTwit URL => http://duaner.org/FHY.

screenshot-2

If you’re using the built-in WordTwit URL shortener, you can also enable an option to dynamically convert all links in your post content to shortened URLs. When used in conjunction with the banner feature, you’ll be able to personally brand all links to other peoples’ sites that originate from your site.

WordTwit can now also be controlled by tags and/or categories. For example, you could configure WordTwit to only tweet new posts that have a specific tag/category. You can also do the reverse, and instruct WordTwit to ignore posts that have a certain tag/category.

And there you have it. There are a few smaller changes as well, but you’ll just have to download and install version 2.0 to check those out yourself. We’re really excited to hear what everyone thinks of the changes.

To get the new version, please visit the WordPress respository, or auto-upgrade from the WordPress plugin page.

25 Comments

  1. Ramoonus

    http://www.ramoonus.nl

    April 12th, 2009

    I’m going to replace Twitter Tools by WordTwit straight away!
    Great work once again (am I falling in repeat?)

  2. quarsan

    April 12th, 2009

    I did the auto update and got this error:

    WordPress database error: [You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'table aiwp_tweet_urls' at line 1]
    describe table aiwp_tweet_urls

    WordPress database error: [Table 'aiwp_tweet_urls' already exists]
    CREATE TABLE `aiwp_tweet_urls` (`id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,`original` varchar(128) collate utf8_bin default NULL,`url` varchar(7) collate utf8_bin NOT NULL,`views` int(11) NOT NULL default ’0′,`post_id` int(11) NOT NULL default ’0′,PRIMARY KEY (`id`),UNIQUE KEY `url_index` (`url`),KEY `original` (`original`),KEY `url_index_2` (`url`)) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 COLLATE=utf8_bin;

  3. Lutz

    http://www.balschuweit.de/blog2

    April 12th, 2009

    WordTwit 1.3 works fine, but not 2.0. No post is sent to Twitter :-(

  4. Duane Storey

    BNC Development Guru

    April 12th, 2009

    @Lutz – can you please go into the WordTwit configuration page and re-enter your Twitter credentials and hit save? See if that fixes it for you.

  5. Lutz

    http://www.balschuweit.de/blog2

    April 13th, 2009

    OK it works. Happy Easter and thanks.

  6. Perry Myklebost

    April 13th, 2009

    Bug – one Web site works fine the other doesn’t.

    Using WP 2.7.1 and WordTwit 2.0.3 and one Web site has a Widget for the user to sign up and another identical Web site shows NO widget to add to a column – it’s just missing from the list of widgets to install.

    Help!

  7. Perry Myklebost

    April 13th, 2009

    Oops….one site had another Twitter module that allowed the user to subscribe.

    Your module is fine – it does Twitter folks who signed up – you need that widget too.

  8. quarsan

    April 14th, 2009

    Latest upgrade fixed everything. Thanks!

  9. Tinh

    http://blogviet.info/2009/04/google-adsense-khong-danh-cho-ng%C6%B0%E1%BB%9Di-d%C6%B0%E1%BB%9Bi-18-tu%E1%BB%95i/

    April 17th, 2009

    Excellent improvement but the most popular and newer links did not work at all.

  10. Betty

    http://www.bettyfellows.com/blog

    May 4th, 2009

    The program sounds great. I entered my twitter info and made sure the settings are correct. As of now it hasn’t posted my latest blog posting. I even updated the latest posting after I installed your program.

    Did I miss something?

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