Twitter can easily be embedded into almost any site including Wordpress blogs, Typepad, Moveable Type and any site allowing for liberal handcoded html or flash (ie for MySpace). For those of you don’t know, Twitter is a “microblogging” service; it accepts only small 140 character posts for quick dispersement of information. You can update your phone through text message if you are in a supported country allowing you to have another sticky element of your site.

The easiest way to embed Twitter in a website is to use any of the official Twitter Badges. The most flexible of these is the HTML/JavaScript widget which can be customized using CSS. This is the one I use here. It matches the look of my site seamlessly on the Wordpress sidebar. Make sure you put the script tag at the bottom of your website right above the body tag to prevent Twitter outages from stalling out your site.

If you prefer, you can use any RSS compatible plugin, such as Feedlist for Wordpress to display the Twitter RSS feed.

There is also a Twitter for Wordpress plugin. I haven’t tried it since it seems like the cut and paste code is so simple to implement, but it’s another option available.

If you encounter the “Tweet My Blog” plugin in your search for Twitter integration, avoid it. There is word that it is adware. Not great for SEO.

In other Wordpress news, Wordpress version 2.6.1 has been released. This is a bugfix release without much in the way features. If you or your users have experienced any of the problems mentioned, install it as soon as possible

About the author: Brian E. Young is a graphic designer and illustrator in the Baltimore/Washington area. See the About Me for more information. Read more from this author

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