What I like most about Twitter is the flexibility it provides with the various applications, tools [...]]]> Everyone loves Twitter and Twitter is the latest fad in social networking. If you have a WordPress Blog, the 15 plugins below give you the ability to fully integrate your blog with Twitter.

What I like most about Twitter is the flexibility it provides with the various applications, tools and plugins available. I’ve recently added a “Retweet” Button to the end of my posts, utilizing TweetMeTweetMe Button. Another tool I’ve been using is TwitMe to automatically publish my new posts to Twitter. Take a few of the plugins below for a spin and you’ll be hooked.

If you like this post, please feel free to “Tweet it” by clicking on the button below the post to the left. You can also follow Eazy Cheezy on Twitter by clicking on the Twitter Icon.

Add Tweet Functionality (Buttons) to Your Blog
1. Twitter Retweet WP 2.7 (5 Stars, 427 Downloads)
Displays a ReTweet link givings visitors the ability to ReTweet your current post.
2. Twitter It! WP 2.7.1 (5 Stars, 1054 Downloads)
Gives readers the ability to tweet articles on your site. Easy to install, highly customizable & caching of short-urls included.
3. TweetMeTweetMe Button WP 2.7.1 (5 Stars, 2973 Downloads)
Adds a button for your blog to be retweeted. Also provides a current count of how many times your story has been retweeted throughout Twitter.

Display Tweets
4. Twitter for WordPress WP 2.7 (5 Stars, 65,332 Downloads)
Use a widget or just the code to display your latest tweets in your WordPress blog.
5. Twitter Widget Pro WP 2.8 (4.5 Stars, 15,128 Downloads)
Widget that displays twitter feeds, including @username and link parsing. Supports displaying profiles images & lets you control whether to display the time and date of a tweet or how log ago it happened. Requires PHP5.
6. Thread Twitter (5 Stars, 1372 Downloads)
Fetches your tweets and display them in thread style.
7. TweetBacks WP 2.7 (4.5 Stars, 9450 Downloads)
Imports tweets about your posts as comments. Display them in between other comments on your blog or separately.
8. Twitter Digest WP 2.7.1 (5 Stars, 411 Downloads)
Publishes a daily post of Tweets from the previous day.

Twitterize Your Comments
9. Twitter Style Links WP 2.7.1 (4 Stars, 232 Downloads)
If you write  a comment like “@brian, how are you?” this plugin will search for @brian’s url in the comment list of the current post and convert the name to a link.
10. Add Twitter Link to Comments WP 2.7 (5 Stars, 360 Downloads)
Adds a Twitter link to comments if comment author uses an email connected to a Twitter account.

Automated Posts from Blog to Twitter
11. Twitter Post WP 2.7 (5 Stars, 233 Downloads)
Enables automatic messages from your blog to Twitter, when you publish a new post.
12. TwitMe WP 2.7.1 (4 Stars, 15825 Downloads)
Automatically posts your new posts to Twitter.

Update Your Status
13. WP to Twitter WP 2.7.1 (5 Stars, 8981 Downloads)
Posts a Twitter status update from your blog using the Cli.gs URL shortening service to provide a link back to your post from Twitter.

More Fun
14. Twitter to Wire WP 2.7 (5 Stars, 417 Downloads)
Allows your twitter posts to show up in your buddypress wire.
15. Top Twitter Links by Twitturls WP 2.7 (5 Stars, 233 Downloads)
Widget that displays currently popular links that have been tweeted.

Are there any Twitter WordPress Plugins you’d like to recommend? The plugins above were selected based on their ratings, number of downloads and their cool factor. I also selected only the plugins that were compatible of up to atleast 2.7. As always, I’d love to hear from you.

Label [...]]]> Are you tired of the generic & boring option Blogger provides for adding labels to your blog? If you are looking to add a nice, visually pleasing label cloud to your site, I found 3 excellent options. I’m a big fan of each & I’m currently using 2 of the 3 on my sites.

Label Clouds provide a better visual method of displaying your tags and labels on your blog. It enables readers to click tags & find your categorized posts. In searching the web, I chose the 3 best options I found that are very useful & appealing. You can also fully customize each. The instructions are very straight forward, but I recommend taking a look at the “Key Considerations Prior to Installing,” below before proceeding.

1. Phydeaux3′s Label Cloud (Works with New Blogger)
Phydeaux3 provides detailed instructions to install and customize this label cloud. My favorite feature of this label cloud is it displays number of posts as you scroll over each label.

2. Blogger Buster – Blogumus A Flash Animated Label Cloud (Works with Blogger)
Blogger Buster shows you how to install & customize this animated flash-based label cloud that was based off a WordPress plug-in. It’s very visually appealing & the easiest of the 3 to install. The tags swirl using a circular motion & looks great! I installed it and am using it at Eazy Entertainment.

3. Compender – A Simple Blogger Tag Cloud (Works with Blogger)
This a simple, yet effective Label Cloud that I chose to use on Eazy Cheezy. I like the simplicity of it and it was exactly what I was looking for.

Key Considerations Prior to Installing;
1. Add the “Labels” Gadget prior to installing any of the below. To add “Labels,” login to Blogger, click “Layout” & “Add a Gadget.”

Find “Labels ” & click the + to Add it to your template.

2. Always Backup Your Template. To do this, click on the Layout Tab, then Edit HTML. You’ll then find the “Download Full Template” option. You can save the full template to your computer.

The label clouds can enhance your reader’s experience by giving them an easier way to search your previous posts. They are much more visually appealing than the default blogger labels. Perhaps the most difficult task is properly labeling your posts. I’m in the process of going back to my earliest posts & tagging in a more effective and smarter way. When I started blogging, I didn’t know what I was doing with the tags. Hope you find this helpful. If you have any other great label clouds you’d like to recommend, please feel free to share.

Recently, I’ve been on a pursuit to find the best social bookmarking widgets and pulling them all together on this [...]]]> I often see a wide variety of social bookmarking widgets that enable readers to save and share your site. I’ve always wondered where to find some of the cool buttons and badges I’ve came across.

Recently, I’ve been on a pursuit to find the best social bookmarking widgets and pulling them all together on this entry. It’s all about options. For this entry, I chose the all-in-one type badges. It’s all about having options.

2. Addthis – Choose whether you want the bookmarking or the feed button, select your button, type in your feed and grab your button. You can choose whether to have it drop down or not as well.

3. Add to Any – Choose a subscribe or share button, pick your button and type in your URL.

4. BlogBadge – Find your user names and IDs for each of your profiles.

5. Clearspring Launchpad – With Launchpad, you’ll first need to register for a free account. You can modify the widget settings to your liking once you register.

6. Shoutlist Icons - This is another badge, similiar to Blogbadge, which is on Widgetbox. Replace the information with your own, choose how many columns and rows you want and get your widget.

7. Ultimate Social Bookmark – Another Widgetbox badge. It’s a less visually appealing bookmarking tool, but one that could also be very useful.

8. FlashDen Social Bookmark Buttons for Flash – ($5) I didn’t try this out, due to it being $5, but I just wanted to list it as an alternative. It’s a pretty fancy flash badge, but I’ll stick with free.

If you have any other great all-in-one social bookmarking badges or buttons, please do share. I’ll continue to add to the listing.

1. YouTube 2.5 Video Widget - [...]]]> Did you ever want to add a music or video widget to your site? I’ve been searching for some of the best music and video widgets to add to Eazy Entertainment and wanted to share some of the best ones I was able to find.

1. YouTube 2.5 Video Widget - 4.5/5 user rating (99 ratings) and 22,443 installs. You can display your or another users video or favorites of your choice or can simply just use tags or tags

2. My YouTube Favorites Widget – 4.5/5 user rating (25 reviews) and 9,023 installs. You can use this widget to share your favorite YouTube Videos. This widget automatically updates to include your 10 most recent favorites from YouTube.

3. Funny or Die: Will Ferell’s Favorites Widget – 5/5 user ratings (5 ratings) and 1,255 installs. Funny or Die is Will Ferell’s collection of funny videos. It provides links to videos from http://www.funnyordie.com! When you click on a link within the widget, it takes you to their channel.

4. Rotten Tomatoes Mini Site Widget - 5/5 user ratings (2 reviews) & no install info from this widget site. You can see news, movies and trailers in this widget. You can login and add movies too. One thing I don’t like is when you click on anything within the widget, it takes you to their site.

5. YouTube Playlist Widget - 4/5 user rating (33 ratings) and 12,582 installs. You can use this widget to add your favorite YouTube playlist. Since this widget is Flash-based, you should be able to add it to just about anywhere Widgetbox installs: MySpace, Facebook, Netvibes, TypePad, Blogger, etc.

6. Hulu Widgets – This widget allows you to watch Hulu from a widget. There are different widgets, such as the Player Widget, TV Show Widget and Picture Widget. Currently, blogger isn’t listed as one of the sites to embed with.

7. FineTune Radio Widget – 5/5 overall user rating (99 reviews) & 28,265 total installs. You search for an artist, then can play their radio channel.

8. Flash Mp3 Player Widget – 4/5 overall user rating (65 ratings) and 37,367 installs. You can play an Mp3 file, XSPF playlist, or RSS/Atom feed containing the music you want to play.

9. My iTunes Widget – 4/5 overall user rating and 34,154 installs. Click on the link, sign into your My iTunes account. You can select a widget based from either your purchases, favorites or reviews.

10. Weekly Free iTunes Download Widget - 4.5/5 user rating (13 ratings) and 5,529 installs. This widget has links to the iTunes Store’s free weekly downloads.

Do you like any particular music or video widget that I didn’t list? Are there any widgets I listed above that you like or dislike? If you try any of them, feel free to post your link so we can check it out on your site.

Before I start to dig into Technorati, I must tell you that I am just getting my start [...]]]> As I stated in my previous entries, Alexa Rankings are not the only system that is taken in consideration when determining the top sites. Many consider Google Rankings and the Technorati Rankings to be just as important.

Before I start to dig into Technorati, I must tell you that I am just getting my start with Technorati and am in no way an expert. Technorati is my latest curiousity. I’ve been using Technorati, but nothing more than really just having a presence on their site and an “Add this to your Favorites” badge on my site.

Technorati Lingo
Technorati – Technorati is kind of like Google for blogs. It’s a search engine that indexes, sorts and categorizes blogs. They currently have over 112 million blogs indexed.

Authority – Authority is a way that Technority measures your site by the number of incoming links. Authority is directly related to your ranking with Technorati. The more links of yours that appear in other blogs Technorati recognizes, the higher your authority and Technorati Ranking will be.

How does it Work?
Technorati looks for tags that the author of each blog places on their sites. The tags help to categorize the search results and the most current results will display first.

How to Get Started

• Join Technorati.
• Add your blog URL to your profile.
• Spend some time adding Tags to your blog. Use spaces, rather than commas to seperate. You can also use tag generator tools, such as Ukion.
• Add the “Add to Technorati Favorites” button to your site.

Tips
Add a Technorati Button - As I mentioned above, add the “Add Technorati to my Favorites” Badge on your site.

Use Technorati Tags in each of your blog posts. According to DetectorPRO, this will help Technorati in indexing your posts. To learn more about the Technorati Tags, continue reading.

Build Your Favorites - When you find blogs you like within Technorati, you can “Favorite Them.” If they have the button displayed on their particular blog, that’s an easy way to add them to your favorites.

If you are interested, we can do a Technorati Favorite Exchange. Click here to add Eazy Cheezy to your Favorites and I’ll add you as well.

Leave Comments – Don’t hesitate to comment on the blogs you like. Many times, if you show you are an interested reader and take the time to leave your comments, the blog author will visit your site as well and sometimes comment. The bigger blogs aren’t as likely to visit and leave comments, due to their high amount of traffic, but leave you link in your signature block and perhaps their other readers will.

Ping Your Blog After Each Post – I use PingMyBlog, but you can also either visit Technorati and manually ping or setup and configure an automatic Ping on your site.

Keep an eye on the “Blog Reactions” – You can see what sites are displaying your links and which keywords are being used. You can find this by clicking on your profile, then your site you added to Technorati. It will display your site, keywords, rankings & authority, latest posts, then you can scroll down to find the “Blog Reactions.”

Big Bang List – You can take part in a social activity by adding your link to DetectorPRO’s list Big Bang List. There are many other great tips at DetectorPRO’s Technorati Tips.

Widgets & Tools
Technorati Widgets
Manual or Auto Technorati Ping Setup

Other Great Resources
Technorati Blog
Technorati 2008 State of Blogosphere
User Tips

Have you used Technorati? If so, what are your thoughts? Do you have any other tips for using Technorati? As always, I’d love to hear your input.