Tweeting new posts

[Bernie]

I was wondering whether the forum tweets new posts?

On another forum that uses (as far as I can tell) the same software, it tweets each new thread that's created. I find I'm more involved in that forum (Song of the Paddle (http://www.songofthepaddle.co.uk/forum/)) and I think it's because I see most new threads that are created. It's a nice reminder to go look. I sometimes forget about this forum for days on end.
:ashamed:

Is this something you can switch on in the settings, or do you need a plugin or custom development? If it already does, what is the Twitter account we should follow?

[Ashley Cawley]

Hi Bernie,

That's an interesting concept, thanks for bringing it up.

I do occasionally tweet some threads from the forum that I think are interesting on the Twitter account here: twitter.com/naturlbushcraft (http://twitter.com/naturlbushcraft) however that's probably not often.

I would love to have more time to dedicate to both the forum and twitter but I'm struggling currently. All the same I think your suggestion is a good one and I'll look into doing that if I can. I'm pretty sure it'll be a plugin/addon thing not natively supported by the forum software but we'll get there. :ashamed:

[Martin]

Bernie, why not send Ashley the code to integrate the forum with the NBC twitter feed? I'm sure you must have that lying around somewhere? If not, it's about time you got scribbling. ;)

Martin

[Bernie]

Bernie, why not send Ashley the code to integrate the forum with the NBC twitter feed? I'm sure you must have that lying around somewhere? If not, it's about time you got scribbling. ;)

Martin

These forums are written in PHP - something I've not done before. Besides, there's sure to be a plug in already written and that means I can go play with sticks and tins! :)

[Ashley Cawley]

These forums are written in PHP - something I've not done before. Besides, there's sure to be a plug in already written and that means I can go play with sticks and tins! :)"But I want to go play with sticks and tins!" :rolleye ... not troubleshoot plugins :p

Nah, when I finally get round to doing this I'll probably separate it off onto it's own dedicated Twitter account so that people can choose to subscribe to an automated twitter-feed or not.

[Bernie]

Hi Ash

Yes, please make a separate Twitter account for forum thread posts. Maybe even two accounts, one for new threads, and another for any post made? Nah, the latter would snowball listeners. Just new threads, like SongOfThePaddle does would be nice.

I have, this morning, written my first Tweeter application and found what it takes to send tweets on behalf of an account. I'm sure I can cobble something together with the RSS feed from this forum to send tweets on behalf of that account, but I don't want to do this if it's going to cause you any troubles, or if you're already doing something along these lines.

No work is required from you; it's something I can do on my own:

Set up a new twitter account (nbcforum?)
Set up my forum-tweeter application for the above account.
Keep a local list (database) of threads and whether they've been tweeted.
My program would regularly fetch the RSS feed (http://www.naturalbushcraft.co.uk/forum/external.php?type=rss2) of this forum and for all threads that have not been tweeted, send a tweet with the title of the thread and a hyperlink to the thread.

More ideas (version 2):

Scan for threads that have no replies 3 days (configurable) after they're posted and tweet them.
Allow user selection of a thread to boost (by tweeting it).


What say you Ash, would you like me to do this?

[Ashley Cawley]

Update to this thread: Bernie has made an application that posts to Twitter automatically, see this thread: http://www.naturalbushcraft.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?1972-NBC-Forum-on-Twitter