Another site update, and things are getting simultaneously more complicated, but also more clear in terms of what direction to go in. Perhaps. Some notes on progress:
1. Theme
For the website, I’ve installed the minimalist theme from techdesigns, for the simple fact that it’s closest to what I have in mind for the eventual site design. Apart from the simplicity, I wanted to get away from the “blog” design that so many sites have – a list of articles tucked one under the other, a never-ending downward stream of item-after-item. I like the way this theme focuses on the navigation – more browsing, than catching up. More exploration than scrolling. It’s only in version 1, and I’ve had to make a few small tweaks, but I look forward to seeing where we can go with it, especially as more content gets rolled in from outside.
2. Twitter
For Twitter integration, I’m currently playing with 3 plug-ins running alongside each other. There’s decent overlap between them, but it seems as though each does or doesn’t do one thing slightly better. here’s what I’m playing with, and why:
- Twitter Blog – for posting articles from the blog to Twitter (as it doesn’t seem to be able to turn them off, although this post is the first try), and for turning tweets into blog posts as it apparently does hashtag filtering.
- Twitoaster – for gathering @replies on Twitter and turning them into blogposts.
- Twitter Tools – for posting weekly digests of Tweets, which I may or may not turn off later…
I may have to re-think this combination, but it’s all part of the process. I’ll definitely be reporting back on how well this is working over the next few weeks (e.g. do I really want to tweet every post?)
What are you using to integrate Twitter with WP? Does it work for you? Is it even a good idea? Feel free to comment here, or tweet replies to @emptytech and test the system out…