Anyone use twitter.com?

[beerinator]

After playing around on facebook for a number of days building an application, I started finding the act of updating my status to be fun.  So I opened a twitter.com account and started looking into how to weave that into the forums.

Basically, twitter.com is "blogging" for people who don't like to type.  It allows you to keep people up on what you are doing, in 140 characters or less.  So basically you can type what you are doing, or use it to keep up with thoughts or something. 

example twitter page: http://twitter.com/beerinator

One of the coolest features about twitter is that they give you multiple ways to enter your posts.  You can enter via a text sent from your cell phone.  Or you can enter via one of your instant messaging programs.  And you can obviously enter directly through the form on twitter.com  Basically they have created a very easy way for you to update your status so that all your friends can see.

Well, I whipped up a quick mod here that will allow you to tie a twitter account into your Beer Mapping account.  After doing so, your twitter posts will be displayed under your posts (where your signature is) and on your forums profile page.

Instructions:
1. create an account on twitter: http://twitter.com
2. once you have your account set up the way you want it, click on the rss button at the bottom left of the page.  The url contains your twitter id number.
3. paste your twitter id number into the twitter id field on your forums profile information page:  http://beermapping.com/forum/index.php?action=profile;sa=forumProfile
4. done.

The signature field will overwrite the twitter field underneath your posts.  So if you have anything written in your signature field your twitter info will not be posted.

[peetoteeto]

I do! I signed up for Twitter and use it here and there. Once my new venture gets running, I expect to use it for interactive updates on brewery operations. Right now I'm goofing around with it...you can see how I've half-assedly linked my iTunes to automatically create Twitter updates. (Which could get really obnoxious for ppl following Twitter users).

http://twitter.com/fullsteam

[beerinator]

By the way, changes will not necessarily show up here within seconds of you posting to twitter.  We are using cacheing of the feed here so that we don't ping twitter looking for updates every time a thread is loaded.  If you set this up you should be able to see your newest twitter within a few minutes, no more than an hour.

This might not work that well for a "what I am listening to" signature display although that is a neat idea (that you could probably do better through last.fm if you wanted).

I'm testing the phone updating now so get ready!

[braconid]

I'll give this a try.  I've got no need to start a blog, but this seems like something easy enough to track since I can do it through my gmail, which I already use.

[beerinator]

If anyone is in love with their signature as it is, I can make this so that the twitter link is below the regular signature instead of being forced to use one or the other.

[BahHumBrew]

If anyone is in love with their signature as it is, I can make this so that the twitter link is below the regular signature instead of being forced to use one or the other.

Not sure that it's worth adding more lines to the posts.  Maybe the signature or twitter status could be put in the body of the post, on the same line that "Report to Moderator" appears.  Otherwise I can live without the signature when I'm updating twitter status.  It might be nice to have a way of turning the twitter status on/off on the profile page (without deleting the account number).

[beerinator]

I've been playing with the twitter api this morning and I made a little application that I think twitter really needs to reach it's full potential.

Basically you can go here:
http://beermapping.com/t/

And you can enter your username, password (I'm storing nothing from that page), status update and an address.  Then the system on my end takes what you have written in the address field and it attempts to use google's geocoding system to find out simple coordinates for the address.  If it finds coordinates, the code on my end will concatenate the latitude and longitude onto the end of your twitter post and it will update your twitter account (if you entered a proper username/password combo).

Basically, if you leave the address blank empty it will not attempt to update with coordinates.

What good is this for? You might ask?

Well, my goal for my own personal use was to have a good setup that will work well on my mobile internet for entering status and addresses.  And on another page I plan to grab my own twitter feed containing coordinates, split the first part of the twitter feed, display that and take the second part of the twitter feed (the coordinates) and use that to display a map on the same page showing my current location.  The lat/lng is truncated to only two decimal places for character saving reasons and because of that it isn't 100% pinpoint accurate.  This is a good thing though because I don't really want people knocking on my door looking for me all the time. 

[peetoteeto]

It worked for me...once I figured out that I needed to place a comma between city, state (as you listed). I don't have a portable series of tubes, however, so I'm not sure how I'll use this.

[BahHumBrew]

Gave it a try.  Didn't like Incline Village,NV for an address.  Twitter was updated ok but no location.

[beerinator]

It worked for me...once I figured out that I needed to place a comma between city, state (as you listed). I don't have a portable series of tubes, however, so I'm not sure how I'll use this.

Yeah the system isn't intelligent yet.  We'll work on that.

I'm also probably not catching spaces in city names or something like that either.  I'll double check on that.   

edit: Actually I was just a bit to firm on the accuracy that google returned.  The search for "Incline Village,NV" returns an accuracy of 3 and we were only allowing 4 and up.  I tweaked it and now Incline Village should work.

[beerinator]

By the way, here is what I am doing with my twitter feed at the moment:
http://jonathansurratt.com

If there is no "|" character in the post it will not print the "location:" line of text or the link.  Eventually I may drop a tiny google map in there somewhere, but so far I am just using it to show how twitter could be used in a really cool way (and I have a flashy ajax shelf in there too).

[BahHumBrew]

The search for "Incline Village,NV" returns an accuracy of 3 and we were only allowing 4 and up.  I tweaked it and now Incline Village should work.

Yes, that did it.  I should have just added a street address but thanks for the tweak. 
By the way, I updated through your link using my cell phone (Palm Treo).  Seemed to work just fine.  Might be nice to include it in a pared down form as a beermapping mobile link.

[beerinator]

The way this twitter api works, we could easily add some push capability into The Beer Mapping project so that any person who has a twitter id entered into their profile would have the automatic ability to update their twitter with the location they just reviewed, the score of the review as well as a link to that location.

This is just an idea.  There are other similar things we could do as well if the person writing the code doesn't get distracted.

[beerinator]

I changed a couple of things so now, if you are using a device with javascript (like a computer) and you enter an address (and then tab off - or click somewhere else with your mouse) you will see a map display under the submit button so you can see where google thinks you are.  If you see a place you don't recognize, don't click the submit button until you can fix the address to display correctly.

All of this is virtually untested, so good luck!  Off to a christmas party (just like my twitter sig should say in a few minutes - with the correct coordinates  ).

[BahHumBrew]

Seem to be having some trouble with the google geocoding this morning.  Tried to use an address that worked yesterday but it couldn't find me today.