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Self-hosted chats (for twitter hashtags) WordPress

  • SOLVED

I'm looking for a plugin, script, or API that allows me to set up something similar to Tweetchat.com on my own domain. I want to be able to announce archive events & hold twitter chats using personal hashtags without attendees having to go to Twitter or a 3rd part app, but instead do it on my site.

It should allow them to use Twitter directly from my site like tweetchat.com, www.fitblogs.com or hashtagsocialmedia.com. I've found a few apps that allow me to do it via their service, or one tweet at a time, but I want the chat room feel of it and want it on my own site.

Note: I'm willing to post this as a job if anyone has done a similar project and can turn it fairly quickly, but initially, I'm asking for information on how it's done. I do web design work, but this is beyond my capabilities.

Answers (2)

2010-11-15

Bob answers:

Well it most likely going to be a custom job for interfacing with the twitter api, though not super difficult wordpress is very twitter friendly.

You can test out some functionality for free using the p2 theme [[LINK href="http://p2theme.com/"]]http://p2theme.com/[[/LINK]]

And these twitter plug-ins they should work with p2.

[[LINK href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tweet-blender/"]]http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tweet-blender/[[/LINK]]
[[LINK href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/twitconnect/"]]http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/twitconnect/[[/LINK]]
[[LINK href="http://alexking.org/projects/wordpress/readme?project=twitter-tools"]]http://alexking.org/projects/wordpress/readme?project=twitter-tools[[/LINK]]



There is also a "private" p2 theme that acts more like a task manager for teams called GTD from Templatic.


*edited to make links work.


webdiva comments:

Bob, thanks for answering and sorry if I wasn't clear in what I'm looking for.

But,
1) I don't want to change my theme
2) The plug-ins you've suggested I've already looked into (except tweet-blender) and they don't have the capability I'm wanting. Or if they do, it's not documented.

2010-11-17

Denzel Chia answers:

Hi,

I had never done this before but the theory is like this.

1) Register an application with twitter to use @anywhere

2) Create a tweetbox with pre-populated hashtag
http://dev.twitter.com/anywhere/begin#tweetbox

3) Write an application that parse a twitter search for the hashtag and source.
Whereby source is the name of the application that you register.
You will get a list of the tweets using the hashtag from your application.
Other tweets not tweeted by your application, but using the same hashtag will not appear.

Parse this rss and list out like a chat room on your site.

Example twitter search of hashtag #wordpress by application tweetdeck
http://search.twitter.com/search.rss?q=%23wordpress+source:tweetdeck

4) Write a javascript to activate the search, when a user tweets from your tweetbox,
That will give you a hashtag chat client.

You will need to engage someone to code this plugin or theme for you.

Thanks.

Denzel


webdiva comments:

Thanks so much for replying, Denzel. I already have an @anywhere app registered, so I'll look into the other stuff and try to find someone to code it for me.

One question though...

If this is hosted on my site, why would tweetdeck be needed?


Denzel Chia comments:

Hi,

no you don't need to use tweetdeck, I just used it as an example to show you a Twitter rss search feed. You should replace it with your @anywhere application name once you get it up and running.

there is actually 3 feed formats, json, atom, and rss.
rss is the easiest to handle in php.

Thanks.


webdiva comments:

Okay, got it. Thanks again for taking the time to reply. I appreciate it.