Although I personally am not a major Twitter user, I do see the value in the service and have made several attempts to use it more often.   For many others, it has become an addiction and possibly even a major time sink.

One trend we are starting to see more often lately is Twitter being integrated into WordPress blogs.  In the past we’ve featured a couple methods to integrate Twitter into your blog such as How to Add a “Tweet This” Link To Your Blog and How to Display Most Recent Twitter Entry.   Even more recently there have been some WordPress plugins released to further integrate Twitter into your WordPress blog:

1. Tweetbacks – This recent plugin by our friend Joost De Valk displays any “tweets” about your blog post below that post in the same way trackbacks/pingbacks are often displayed on WordPress blogs.   You can read more information about the plugin and how to install it here.  A similar plugin called TweetSuite was released recently as well.
2. Twitter Comments – Works similar to Gravatars, but displays the comment author’s Twitter avatar instead.  If a Twitter avatar is not available, it will then attempt to locate a Gravatar to use instead.

Due to the popularity of WordPress, I would imagine this is only the tip of the iceberg and many more Twitter WordPress plugins will follow over the coming months/years.   Out of curiosity, for those of you that are heavy Twitter users, what have you done to integrate Twitter into your WordPress blog?

Update: I just ran across this post over at Profit Blogger which shares more than 20 Twitter WordPress plugins that already exist.

If you’ve been with WordPress awhile, you’ll probably remember back in October of 2007 when Automattic purchased Gravatar.   The concept behind Gravatar had always been an incredible idea, but it had always lacked the time and resources needed to make it work.  Now that Automattic acquired Gravatar, it was pretty obvious that the service would be resurrected and would be a great fit for the WordPress platform.

Earlier this year when WordPress 2.5 came out, a shift was made in the WordPress community from the widely popular MyAvatars plugin (which uses MyBlogLog avatars) to Gravatars.   In addition to being built into WordPress.com blogs, we were also given the ability to build Gravatars into your WordPress.org blog.  But, did you know that WordPress.org blog owners can now also create your own custom default Gravatar image?

Over at Pro Blog Design, Michael has written a great tutorial explaining exactly how to add your own default Gravatar image, as well as provide some tips on how to make a good Gravatar default image.

In order to add the image you’ve made, you just need to take your Gravatar code and add the image URL right after the comma:

Before

<?php if(function_exists(’get_avatar’)){ echo get_avatar($comment, 50 );} ?>

After

<?php if(function_exists(’get_avatar’)){ echo get_avatar($comment, 50, 'http://www.wphacks.com/wp-content/themes/HackWordPressPro/images/nophoto.gif');} ?>

Great tip Michael!  You’ll want to click over to see Michael’s tips on creating a custom “No Gravatar” logo for your website.

Wow, it seems like it was just recently, but a quick search through our archives shows that it has already been four full months since I began my campaign to get people to support Gravatars on their WordPress blogs.

That post was originally written shortly after Automattic acquired Gravatar and most WordPress bloggers were still using the MyAvatars plugin (which displays MyBlogLog avatars).   I always enjoyed the MyAvatars plugin, but felt that it was important to show your support for WordPress by displaying Gravatars.   That was about the time that this blog switched to Gravatars and hasn’t looked back (we’ve even gone as far as to integrate them into the recent comments in the sidebar).

In the last six months since Automattic acquired Gravatar, it has already come a long way.  Gravatars load a lot faster now and people using the WordPress 2.5 branch (or using WordPress.com) now have built-in Gravatar support.   In other words, there has never been a better time to have a Gravatar and place Gravatars on your WordPress blog.

Sadly, a quick glance at the Recent Comments section in our sidebar often shows a number of comments left by people without a Gravatar.  If this sounds like it might be you, I recommend you register your free Gravatar account.  It is really quick and easy!

I maintain a few Gravatar accounts (one for each website email address) so no matter what email address I use in my comment, an appropriate Gravatar should appear next to my comment.   If you have several websites, you may want to consider setting up a few accounts so you are covered in any situation.