Tweetboard: Bringing Twitter to Your Site. In Style. [Accepted into Alpha]

Posted on June 28th, 2009. Written by Arron.

You might have noticed that ‘Tweetboard Alpha’ is currently trending on Twitter. If your not familiar with the service, Tweetboard basically brings your Twitter stream to your site, without having to be tied to Twitter.com, but it does so in a very user friendly, and interactive way. We got accepted into the Alpha, and wanted to show you just how ingenious the service actually is ..

Still in ‘Alpha’ and a By-Invitation-Only service, Tweetboard is a little bit of javascript which transports a chosen Twitter stream (of your choice), and places it on the side of your site in the form of a ‘tab’. Clicking this tab then reveals a slide draw which houses your very own ‘Tweetboard’. Using Twitter’s new Facebook-like ‘Authentication’ system, tweetboard allows your visitors to firstly see what your tweeting, and more importantly, interact with you on Twitter.com, through itself.

The script displays threaded Twitter conversations. Think of it like an open Twitter forum, for everyone currently viewing your site. So, how does it work? You’ll notice we have it active on RazorianFly.com. Just click that tab sticking out from the left-hand side of the site, and a draw will pop open. From here you can reply to any of our tweets, in real-time, or if you like – just post a comment.

Ok Arron, so; How do you know that I’ve replied to you? Here’s the great part. Once you’ve replied to a tweet, you’ve essentially started up an active thread. The best bit? Tweetboard have launched their own URL shortening service, which shortens the direct link to your reply, or post. What’s even better is these URLs actually reflect whether your linking to a reply on someone else’s tweetboard, or if your actually linking to a post.

Here’s an example. Oleg, a Tweetboard support representative posted on our tweetboard recently. He posted: http://posted.at/D5X to which we replied: http://inreply.to/NgP. Each reply you make is sent out as a tweet on your stream, which includes either one of these type of URLs, which in turn links directly to your reply or post.

If your the tweetboard owner, you’ll be able to see how many replies you’ve had, since your last visit just by looking at the tab on the side of your site. The tweetboard tab will turn red if it needs your attention, and green when there’s nothing to report. I have to say that this kind of Twitter integration is going to be welcomed with open arms, worldwide, and we personally can’t wait to see where Tweetboard take this.

You could say currently that it’s missing a lot, and you’d be right. Already accepted members of the Alpha have took no time in creating an ever-growing list of possible functionality which could be added to tweetboard – Seen here.

Why not help us test it out? Simply find a tweet you like, and hit the ‘reply’ button underneath it. As well as replying to already tweeted content, if the mood takes you, you can use tweetboard to just leave a comment. Your reply (or post) will be sent as a normal @reply to the Twitter account user (in this case @razorianfly) which will also include a direct link to your reply.

Have you got a tweetboard yet? Let us know about it,
and maybe we can post on yours too!