How to Add Twitter as a RSS Feed on Wizzley

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a way of alerting your readers that new content has arrived.

Check out Google News. That page is one big RSS feed, prettily formatted but nevertheless a mass of alerts. As is, I believe, the topics page here at Wizzley.

Wherever the logo is found, then it can be clicked for the RSS feed URL. This is a great way of knowing when your favorite authors have added another article; or merely being able to glance through headlines.

Typically, people will use an RSS feed reader of some description. This can be a bespoke program, like Feedreader, or they can be channeled into your e-mail account.

The most popular application of all, Feedburner, has been swallowed by the Google monopoly.  It now forms part of the Google Reader, which had previously been chasing it in terms of users.  It all still does the same thing.

The first time that you click on a RSS feed logo, you will be asked where you wish to direct your feed. Thereafter, your computer's software will remember and add all future streams there.

Another popular, and more common, way to display RSS is to embed them into a webpage. This happens a lot at Wizzley, as I will demonstrate right here.

Twitter is increasingly overtaking mainstream news outlets as the way to learn what's going on in the world.

Media bias has become apparent to all in high profile scandals, like Rupert Murdoch exerting undue influence over politicians. This has resulted in a climate of distrust in the printed word.

Yet others prefer on-line news curators for mere convenience. It's also the cheaper option, if the individual is already connected to the internet.

Twitter answers all of these issues. In the mass of alerts and 140 characters descriptions of the world, eye-witnesses can give us information before journalists have even touched their keyboards.

• On May 1st 2011, it was Twitter which broke the news that Osama bin Laden had been killed.
• On August 23rd 2011, live Tweets from people experiencing an earthquake was the first indication that a big one was occurring in North America.
• On February 23rd 2012, Twitter announced Whitney Houston's death, before any news journalist even knew.

These are just three examples, but where Twitter really comes into its own is in describing events as they happen.  The Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street and much more have unfolded in real time via Tweets sent by people who were actually there.

If you want the most up-to-date news and information on your Wizzley page, then you should consider including a RSS feed from a carefully selected Twitter account for this very reason.

I'm going to demonstrate how to create a Wizzley Twitter feed with some simple step by step moves. Reproduce this in your own page to insert a Tweet feed into a module.

Open up the Twitter page that you want streamed.

Find the account name in the header bar. I've highlighted it in orange in my example. It will be prefixed by an @ symbol.

For our official account, it's @wizzleynews NOT Wizzley.

Select Feeds from the top, right-hand module list. I've highlighted it in orange here too.

This will open up a module editor which asks you for a URL to be added.

It's not just Twitter that can be streamed in here. Anywhere with a RSS logo will produce a URL, which can be slotted into this module.

In this way, it embeds feeds from anywhere, in the same way as your RSS reader programs.

Just take the time to add in a title and subtitle, if required, then select how many feeds you wish to display.

The URL for a Twitter RSS feed is this:

http://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/user_timeline.rss?screen_name=

All you need to do is to add the account name to the end.  In our case, it will be wizzleynews:

http://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/user_timeline.rss?screen_name=WizzleyNews

I recommend unticking the box with 'description', as that makes the feed look very repetitive. There are no descriptions on Twitter, as it only has 140 characters!  So the Wizzley feeds module will compensate by duplicating the header again.

Each of the feed items then become links back to the actual Tweet. This is a little strange for Tweets directing you elsewhere (as with Wizzley, which will send us right back here), but it is brilliant for those entering into conversations or doing live updates from their location.

I hope that was useful and here is the finished product!