Getting Started With @anywhere

One of the most exciting developments at last week’s Chirp Twitter Developers’ Conference was a new tool set called @anywhere. While it’s easy for a developer to use, I thought I’d write a brief rundown for non-developers. If you have a web site and want to interact with Twitter, @anywhere is a quick and easy way to do it.

What does @anywhere give you?

• Auto-linkification of @usernames
• Hovercards
• Follow buttons
• Tweet Box
• User login & signup

Auto-linkification of @usernames: Any time you include a Twitter user name, like “@znmeb”, @anywhere turns it into a clickable link that takes a visitor directly to the user’s tweet stream.

Hovercards: A hovercard is the extension of auto-linkification. When a visitor mouses over the user name, a business-card-like display pops up, displaying selected items from the Twitter user’s profile. Try it here on @znmeb. The default display includes the Twitter avatar, name, user name and location. If the visitor isn’t following the user, there’s a “Follow” button. A “more” link expands the hovercard to include the web page link, bio,  latest tweet, and counts of the user’s tweets, friends and followers. I never get tired of saying this: Hovercards are your friend – make sure they reflect your personal or business brand and use them liberally.

Follow Buttons: In addition to the follow button on a hovercard, @anywhere allows you to place a follow button anywhere on your web site.

Tweet Box: A tweet box is simply a place where your visitors can post to Twitter, right from your web page. The comments boxes on this web site are now augmented by tweet boxes.

User Login and Signup: Using this tool, it is possible for you to use Twitter to allow visitors to sign in to your site.

So how do you get @anywhere on your site? First of all, if you have a WordPress blog, getting on the air with @anywhere is simple. Just install @swhitley’s TwitConnect plugin.  That’s how I’ve implemented @anywhere on the Borasky Research Journal. It’s a typical WordPress plugin – simply install it, activate it and fill in the “Settings” form. There’s a complete set of instructions here.

Here’s another tutorial on getting @anywhere up and running on WordPress: http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-add-twitter-anywhere-in-wordpress/

Here’s another one – also links to some more WordPress @anywhere plugins! http://kovshenin.com/archives/setup-twitter-anywhere-for-wordpress-in-seconds/

If you are running a Drupal site, there’s a plugin for @anywhere as well, written by @abraham. That can be found, with complete documentation, at http://anywhere.drup.al/

If you don’t have either WordPress or Drupal, you’ll most likely need to engage a web developer. But the skills required are simply HTML, CSS and Javascript – there’s no server-side work at all. The @anywhere servers are all at Twitter. Just have your developer visit http://dev.twitter.com/anywhere/begin and follow the instructions.

That’s a brief rundown of @anywhere. I should add that the basic functionality available now is just that – the basics. Future releases will allow much more. In fact, nearly everything you can do with Twitter will eventually be available on your web site via @anywhere!

Update: there is now a separate Google Group just for @anywhere development! To subscribe by email, send an email to twitter-dev-anywhere+subscribe@googlegroups.com, or visit http://groups.google.com/group/twitter-dev-anywhere