Add Google Buzz to your Site!

So as everyone knows Google has released Buzz and by now most everyone has it. The number one question is how do I add it to my site so that people can share my content with their buzz friends. Well, if you are running WordPress it’s pretty easy. Head on over to WordPress.org and search for the plugin called Google Buzz for WordPress. If you are not running WordPress you can just use this link and replace out the variables (designated by <<>>)

http://www.google.com/reader/link?url=<<URL>>&title=<<TITLE>>&srcURL=<<SRC>>&srcTitle=<<SRCTITLE>>

Where
URL = Url of the page you want to share
TITLE = Title of the page that you are sharing
SRC = Source of the page that you are sharing. for instance you may share http://www.kapustabrothers.com/ to buzz but found the link and shared it from aol.com so the SRC would be aol.com.
SRCTITLE = The title of the source.

It’s that simple. A box will pop up you can add some tags and some comments and click post. This will post directly to your buzz feed for all your buzzy friends to see.

Next are the icons. What should you use for an icon? Well you can search the net for them but I found some pretty cool simple ones from http://www.chethstudios.net/

All you have to do is wrap the icon with the link and your all set. I suggest setting a rel and a target too if applicable.


Google Buzz


Google Buzz


Google Buzz


Google Buzz


Google Buzz


Google Buzz


Google Buzz


Google Buzz

Update: Here is another icon that I found floating around on the interwebs.

Google Buzz

Enjoy!

Twitter: Protected Updates are a False Sense of Security

Every morning I check out what happened in DC via Twitter.com for my Living in the District Blog. Basically what I do is I have an RSS feed set up that looks for “DC”, “Washington, DC”, and “Washington DC” that gets piped into my Google Reader and sometimes I randomly reply to them with @livingindc. Today I found a major Twitter bug that I think I should share.

Lately, I have seen more and more twitter users protecting their tweets so that only approved followers can read them. This morning I came across a tweet that I wanted to respond to via my RSS feed and when I went to twitter.com it said that the person had protected their tweets. But how so if I saw it in my feed. This is the problem.

I wanted to respond to this tweet.

kml73_tweet

When I went over to twitter to get the tweet to reply to this is what I got. [Link]

twitter_protected

However, if you go to search.twitter.com and search on this persons tweets this is what you get. [Link]

search_protected

I would say that this is a major security and privacy hole for Twitter users. This is a false sense of security that I think people who protect their tweets need to know about.

Twitter also has described the protect my updates setting incorrectly.

protected_rule

Protected updates are CLEARLY SHOW in the public timeline via search.twitter.com

Our Widget Made TechCrunch!

[We stole the cheezy headline from Zvi Band - Ok the Headline "Look Mom...I'm on TechCrunch" was an embarrassing move for Zvi so I'll change it! - "@skeevis that headline was one of my more embarrassing moves ever"

Our amazing yet simple McCain/Palin '08 widget made TechCrunch yesterday.  Thanks to Justin [Clearspring Employee] for pointing that out.  This is pretty amazing since we have had 13,763 [as of this writing] installs while the widget has only been on the net for 62 days.   TechCrunch points out the view Vs. install ratio for Obama’s tax cut calculator and our simple McCain/Palin YouTube campaign video aggregator.  Our views are far less [only 56,507 as of this writing] but our installs are far more.

It’s kind of amazing that this widget which took only 20 minutes to build, install and distribute has been installed so many times.  I think it only testifies that Clearspring [I don't work there either] has such a superb platform for this.  Every time I create a widget with the Clearspring framework it is so super simple and easy to go from having nothing to having the world.  And the world it is.  Congrats to Clearspring for reaching the status of #1 worldwide for its widget network [comScore Ranking].

So with that said, why not install our widget and help spread the word.  There is only 4 more days left for our widget to make an impact.  If that’s not your slice of bread then jump over to clearspring.com and try the widget creation yourself.

A Twitter Service for Twitter Downtime

If you haven’t seen or heard about the Twitter effect then listen up. People are addicted to Twitter and will do anything for tweets! As you all know twitter has not had the greatest uptime in the past month or so.  However, this hasn’t stopped people from leaving.  People are still signing up for twitter accounts everyday.  Now there is a new service called Twiddict which allows you to keep tweeting when the twitter service is down.  Once twitter comes back online Twiddict will send your tweets over to twitter.  This just goes to show you the dedication of the twitter followers.  People are making services for a service that is never available.  That’s Crazy!  I have said it before.  All twitter needs is a few big tech gurus such as Robert Scoble , Kevin Rose , Leo Laporte , and Jason Calacanis to move to another service and twitter will be dead.  The followership that these people have is a huge!

As for today we will have to see how twitter reacts to WWDC .  Stay tuned.