As most anyone in the tech world knows today was a pretty big day with Twitter making some pretty big announcement of which was the immediate availability of their @anywhere platform for bloggers to implement on their blogs.
For those that don’t know what the @anywhere platform is a quick search on Google will get you all the answers you need but the short answer is this from the @Anywhere developer page
Twitter @Anywhere is an easy to deploy solution for bringing the Twitter communication platform to your own site. Add follow buttons, hovercards, linkify @usernames, and build deeper integrations with “Connect to Twitter.” @Anywhere promotes a more engaged user base for your site.
Now I got to admit I was a little reluctant to try ind implement it as I was expecting some sort of long drawn out process getting the required API key and to be honest the sign up page to get one was a little confusing. Then I came across a post someone I was subscribed to had shared in GReader that made the process a snap to understand.
So a big thanks to Nick O’Neill at SocialTimes for putting together a video walk through of what you need to do to get the API key and how to insert the required javascript code into your theme. It took me literally 5 minutes, or less, to get installed on this site.
At this point I just have the linkify users and hovercards options installed which you can see by hovering over my @stevenhodson Twitter user name. I will be taking a look at the other options that @anywhere provides at some point and will let you know how it goes.
Just as the SXSW conference in Austin a few years saw the launch of a service that has had an incredible impact on our Web we could see a repeat again this year with Twitter’s announcement of its new @anywhere platform.
