Blogger: Add Twitter and Facebook Comments

Due to an Upcoming change by Twitter in their API, Twitter comments will cease to function sometime early in 2013 at the latest. Unfortunately, this cannot be fixed reasonably and no further support will be available. I hope everyone that's used my script over the past year and a half has enjoyed it, but regretfully Twitter is no longer friendly to this type of usage and I've ceased development for their service.

Twitter and Facebook have come to dominate social media in the past few years. Although many other services exist, these two have grown to mammoth proportions dwarfing most others. As such there's a fair chance your blog readers have an account with one or both, though they may not have an account compatible with Blogger comments. In order to increase interactivity of your blog, wouldn't it be nice to broaden your reach by utilizing these two social titans?

In this post I detail how to implement both Twitter and Facebook comments into each blog post along side Bloggers own comment system. This tutorial results in comments which look and function exactly as those active on this blog at the time of publication. End result being a three tab paged comments section with active counts for the number of comments under each for the page.

Twitter Comments: JS Tweet Box

Due to an Upcoming change by Twitter in their API, Twitter comments will cease to function sometime early in 2013 at the latest. Unfortunately, this cannot be fixed reasonably and no further support will be available. I hope everyone that's used my script over the past year and a half has enjoyed it, but regretfully Twitter is no longer friendly to this type of usage and I've ceased development for their service.

In March I released a tutorial for adding Facebook comments to a Blogger site. It's been by far the most popular and active post on the site. At the same time I added a prototype implementation of Twitter comments. It wasn't smooth or pretty, the code was downright ugly to be honest, but at least readers could tweet if they wanted. A number of visitors expressed interest in adding the Tweet option as well, though that code was not ready for prime time

Over the past few months I've learned a great deal more about Twitter's @Anywhere platform. After much work I am now ready to offer a robust Tweet box with additional features of my own design and implementation. My implementation includes a listing of recent tweets linking to the current page and the ability to optionally include a Follow button as well as a shortened URL using Bit.ly. Let's begin with the basics.

Registering a Twitter Anywhere App

In recent months Twitter has begun to change their API and how sites interact with their services. As a result, Twitter @Anywhere applications are being eliminated from their product offerings. In the near future, these specific types of applications are being replaced by newer arrangements rendering this information obsolete.

I began experimentation with Twitter comments on this blog some months ago. Initially I utilized the @Anywhere tweet box provided by Twitter's developers. Although this functioned, I found the implementation unreliable due a problem with the iFrame Twitter uses. Since I had it hidden by default, sometimes the page loaded properly and others it didn't. Despite some reader enthusiasm for a tutorial I held off until I could present a better working implementation and I think I'm finally there.

In a multi-part series I'll illustrate how to integrate my custom Twitter comments into your blog. Let's begin by registering an @Anywhere application with Twitter. This is required to securely authenticate visitors to Twitter so they may tweet and perform other actions directly from your blog. It's a fairly simple task, but I'd like to cover a few items in detail hence multiple parts.

Twitter Comments In the Works

Some time ago I added the Facebook and Twitter tabs into the comments section under each post. The FB comments box post has been quite popular and I've gotten several requests for a tutorial on setting up Twitter as well. Unfortunately, the setup of the Tweet box hasn't really met my expectations. The code to make it work is clumsy and it offered only the ability to authorize my Twitter application, then send tweets with no confirmation the tweets succeeded and no real conversation to contribute to. Yesterday, I began taking steps to expand functionality by writing my own Tweet Box rather than using the one provided by Twitter.

Feeds: Automatic Tweets with Feedburner

As bloggers we put a lot of time and effort into our blogs. There's nothing worse than putting in the work, then not having anyone view it. If you want readers, you've got to publicize your work. In recent years Twitter has become an incredibly powerful tool for connecting with readers and growing a following. It's a place to socialize, publicize and sometimes just have a little fun sharing interesting things in 140 characters or less. Twitter is a vital tool in today's blogging world and if you're not using it you should be.

Publicize on Twitter with Feedburner
Feeds are an excellent way to provide content to a large number of people in an accessible format. Feedburner under the banner of Google adds several feed customizations not in the standard blog feed. Among other things, Tweets to publicize all of your new content are a key feature. Setup is easy and the reach powerful, but first your blog should be setup with Feedburner.