Over the slow Christmas weekend, we added a new feature to RCG and it generated so many interesting conversations on Twitter, that I thought I’d bring the conversation to a blog post.
The new feature is the Twitter widget on the sidebar. Here’s a snapshot:
The current implementation shows all the tweets from this Twitter list: @tyr/rain-city-guide, which takes all “original” tweets from current contributors plus “replies” to others on the list.
The type of feedback I *though* I would get from the other contributors was: “awesome! More Seattle people reading my tweets!” but instead, the reactions were somewhat more tame… with initial reactions being along the lines of Ardell’s reaction: “I have lots of fun on twitter and say things inappropriate for RCG.”
However, the contributors were kind to me and seem more than willing to play this out a bit, but now it’s time for feedback from the rest of the community… Here are some of the options I see for including Twitter on RCG going forward:
1. “Do Nothing” option. i.e. keep “as is”
2. Show all replies from contributors. If I add each author individually to the backend of the plugin (instead of use a Twitter list), it should include all their replies so the feed would include more people and not look like “RCG contributors talking to each other.” (However, if you check out my twitter feed, you’ll see that I talk with people from all over the country, so it will add a lot more noise to the list. Ditto for Ardell)
3. Remove the Twitter feed from RCG. (Kevin Tomlinson voted for this option when he said: “@ARDELLd mixing mediums ain’t the way to go. imo“
4. Include larger Seattle community. I could use a much more general list (i.e. more than just RCG contributors). I’ve created a bunch of “Seattle” lists associated with the Rain City Guide Twitter account. We could modify one of these lists and include the updates from anyone on one of these lists, the benefit being the feed wouldn’t just show RCG contributors talking to each other, but the negative being there’s likely to be a lot more “noise” in the updates as more people are contributing to the feed. As someone in the RCG community (yes, that’s you if you’re reading this!), would you be interested in being on the list???
Do you have a better option?
I’d love to hear your thoughts on the best way to bring Twitter into a real estate blog!
Twitter is fast becoming the best source of “What’s Happening?” in any given area, on any given day. If you are one of those people who thinks it is “silly” to record “What are you doing?”, think about it from the perspective that you might be doing what someone else would consider doing, if they knew it was happening.