The Next Web

TwitterRemote: see which Twitter users visit your site

By Boris
February 11, 2009
• Tweet This
• Tip Techmeme
• Submit to Hackernews

Share


Comments
Working TwitterRemote example:

At The Next Web Blog we love to report on what the future of the web looks like. And if we get a chance we love to help shape it ourselves. Next to a blog (and a conference!) we also have an active Incubator with shares in several projects and companies.

One of those projects is TwitterCounter. We launched TwitterCounter in June 2008 after we found out that more and more people were ignoring our RSS feed because they were getting our new post notifications via Twitter. If that is happening, we need a Feedburner for Twitter, is what we thought.

And so we built it and launched it, all within 48 hours.

Since then we have grown fast and we are now generating more than 3 million TwitterCounters per day, we generate 30.000 pageviews a day on TwitterCounter.com and sell the Featured spot on the front page for $500 a week.

Yes, five hundred a week and we are sold out until April!

We are constantly working on new features ands improvements for TwitterCounter with the 2.5 developers we have. I’m only half a developer and am lucky to be able to rely on Arjen and Maurits to do most of the heavy work.

The last two weeks we have been working day and night to launch a new and exciting feature which we call TwitterRemote.

TwitterRemote is a small widget you can embed on your site, blog or social profile which displays which Twitter users recently visited your blog. The catch: those Twitter users do have to sign into TwitterRemote first. For now we actually have to ask people for their username + password. As soon as Twitter launched OAuth we will skip that step completely.

After twitter users sign in their profile is displayed on every TwitterRemote enabled website they visit after that. The advantage for site owners is that they see who visits their site and they even have an opportunity to contact these people. Twitter users get a change to improve their visibility for site owners and other visitors. It is kinda like MyBlogLog, or FaceBook connect, but for Twitter!

We tested the service with 200 people for the last 2 days and are now ready to get more testers involved. As always, we highly appreciate any feedback!

Get Your own TwitterRemote:
http://twittercounter.com/pages/remote

Examples
A few examples of TwitterRemote enabled websites (Let me know if when add TwitterRemote to your blog and I will give you a link here too!):

http://thenextweb.com
http://bomega.com
http://fearlessblogger.com/
http://digitalbiographer.com/
http://ekive.blogspot.com/
http://webdeveloper2.com/
http://www.main-vision.com/richard/blog/
http://espreson.com/
http://dirty-martinis.com/
http://www.mobile-zeitgeist.com/
http://www.arnehulstein.nl/
http://technmarketing.com/
http://saraolive.com/blog/
http://tech0ster.blogspot.com
http://www.acestartups.com

Reviews

Quote from Mashable: “Frankly, this is a fantastic creation.”
http://mashable.com/2009/02/11/twitterremote/

Quote from HughBriss: “If everyone starts using this on their blogs it will be an excellent way for visitors to those sites to get new followers. Very cool.”
http://hughbriss.com/slick-new-twitter-visitor-widget-for-your-website/


  • Those TheNextWeb guys are now launchg TwitterRemote http://tinyurl.com/cmoc77
  • RT @robinwauters: Those TheNextWeb guys are now launchg TwitterRemote http://tinyurl.com/cmoc77 <<cool, too bad for the twitter login though
  • Now visiting http://tinyurl.com/cmoc77 via TwitterRemote
  • @TheNextWeb I'm on your site! http://tinyurl.com/cmoc77 via TwitterRemote
  • Now visiting http://tinyurl.com/cmoc77 via TwitterRemote
  • We just launched TwitterRemote: http://tinyurl.com/cmoc77
  • RT @Boris We just launched TwitterRemote: http://tinyurl.com/cmoc77
  • RT @boris: We just launched TwitterRemote: http://tinyurl.com/cmoc77
  • Retweeting @boris: We just launched TwitterRemote: http://tinyurl.com/cmoc77
  • RT @boris: We just launched TwitterRemote: http://tinyurl.com/cmoc77 <- Neat. Trying it on my primary blog.
  • RT @jangles RT @boris: We just launched TwitterRemote: http://tinyurl.com/cmoc77 <- Neat. Trying it on my primary blog.
  • TwitterRemote sounds pretty cool: http://tinyurl.com/cmoc77
  • RT @jangles & @boris: We just launched TwitterRemote: http://tinyurl.com/cmoc77 <- Neat. Trying it on my primary blog. (me too)
  • This is pretty cool, well it will be when they integrate OAuth. TwitterRemote. http://tinyurl.com/cmoc77 Which twitters go to your site?
  • twitterremote, see who has been on your twitter page http://tinyurl.com/cmoc77
  • Srikanth AD
    Twitter Remote is an interesting feature to know which twitter users are actually visiting the site.

    I like it.
  • I agree its a great little tool. I have added Twitter remote on blog and also reviewed it on my blog.

    Thanks for another excellent widget.
  • Why not have people two things separate: on the one hand, the authentication at Twitterremote and on the other hand, the proof that you're representing a specific Twitter user.

    You could do the first by any way you like (yet another username/password combi, or a form of delegated authentication: openid, facebook connect...)

    As soon as the user has logged in at your site, give her/him a token with which to prove he owns the Twitter account: by DMíng or @replying an @twitterremote account.

    That's the way Twittermap.nl works for example.
  • Yes, we will add that too! Nice idea!
  • (oh, and as soon as Twitter becomes an OpenID provider, you can do without all that of course...)
  • I'm holding my breath...
  • There' installed it on my blog, works I think.
  • ouch for MyBlogLog
  • Srikanth AD
    :)
  • I found TwitterRemote an interesting widget. Integrated it in my blog espreson.com.
  • Edial
    Very good job...

    But I'd like the Twitter names to be linked directly to their Twitter stream so I can follow them if I want to, or read their profile
  • Could you please make it an option to change to background color as well? (and make all hyperlinks nofollow). Or better: a WordPress plugin would be most excellent!
  • very cool
  • Nice. I put it on my website. I will tweak around tomorrow..
  • Since you guys already said it, I guess I will just emphasise the issue of Page Real estate, as a blogger myself, I would have to choose between one of the famous connection widgets (be it Google or Facebook Connect) which I also figure out most of the time who of my readers is already on Twitter by.
    But I guess for a pure twitter publicity gadget it sounds interesting.
  • Damn you, shakes fist. I am working on this very thing.
  • TwitterRemote: see which Twitter users visit your site http://tinyurl.com/cmoc77 #feedly
  • Nieuw speeltje op mijn blog: Twitter Remote. http://tinyurl.com/cmoc77
  • TwitterRemote: see which Twitter users visit your site http://tinyurl.com/cmoc77 #feedly
  • Strike that, its one thing to trust Facebook and Google w/ the UN/PW of their platform. But to enter my login credentials to a third party thats not affiliated with twitter sounds like that could be exploited easily by wrong doers.
  • I totally get that. Asking for Username/Password was the easiest way to do this. I was trying to get this thing up and running to see if people like it at all. As soon as we can we will add an alternative login method that requires no more than your username..
  • Nice job. I just put it on my blog. Its really looks cool to me.
  • Cool, someone Dugg my post: http://tinyurl.com/cmoc77
  • @TheNextWeb I'm on your site! http://tinyurl.com/cmoc77 via TwitterRemote
  • Twitter Remote- See which Twitter users are visiting your site. http://tinyurl.com/cmoc77
  • I think it's a fun app! Easy to install and a new way to get a sense of who visits my blog.

    Also love that it adds an interactive element to the sidebar. I'm looking forward to see how it evolves!

    (Appreciate the opportunity to test it out (and the mention) - thanks!)
  • Does TwitterRemote show which Twitter user visited your personal website or only your Twitter profile?

    I don't really understand/trust the user profiles that are shown on the widget on my website..
  • Maybe we should explain that somewhere: the first time you install the widget we fill it with a few example users (me and my team) so it doesn't show up empty. Seems to confuse some people so maybe we should change that...
  • TwitterRemote: see which Twitter users visit your site - The Next Web: Working TwitterRemote example: 

    At .. http://tinyurl.com/cmoc77
  • I think this is a great widget and said so in the blog post you got my quote from but in order to really be useful and comparable to MyBlogLog it will need to show visitors without requiring them to sign in first. I hope you can make that happen because then the possibilities are huge.
  • Hi Hugh, MyBlogLog has 645,000 members and Twitter more than 6 million. Identifying those Twitter users without requiring a login is technically impossible. But we do hope to persuade as many as possible to sign up.

    We could add 'anonymous' visitors to the list but that wouldn't be very interesting. regular stats? Like "3 people are visiting this site right now" or "30 people have visited this site in the last 60 minutes" is a possibility.

    What do you think?
  • Now visiting http://tinyurl.com/cmoc77 via TwitterRemote
  • Sehen welche Verfolger Eure Seite oder Blog besucht haben http://tinyurl.com/cmoc77
  • Sehen welche Verfolger Eure Seite oder Blog besucht haben http://tinyurl.com/cmoc77 (via http://twitter.com/wollmilchsau )
  • nice work, thank you. waiting for the o-auth option =)
  • Now visiting http://tinyurl.com/cmoc77 via TwitterRemote
  • Hi Boris. I probably wasn't very clear or actually misspoke in my last comment because I realize that if this works like MyBlogLog that the visitor needs to be signed in to your service in order to show up in the list and no, I don't think we want general stats or anonymous visitors.

    I think once this takes off and you set something up a little more like MyBlogLog where people will join for more reasons than just to have their avatar show up in the list, it will help. My thinking now is that a lot of people will see the generic avatar and see that they have to input their username and password and will be skeptical, given all the recent phishing problems and warnings about giving out their passwords.
  • Yeah, good point. having to authenticate is a huge hurdle for a lot of people. OAuth should solve that, for a part.

    I'm also working on a system where you enter your twitter username, but not your twitter password, and then authenticate by exchanging a direct message. Should have that up early next week.
  • Suggestion: Is there a way to not show our avatar in the list in the widget on our own blog? It looks odd to see my avatar at the top as the owner and then every time I go to my blog for any reason I also show up in the list as a visitor.
  • Well, it isn't supposed to show you there so that is just a bug I thought I fixed. Sorry about that! Should be fixed soon...
  • Pretty cool application. it's already live on our blog and is doing well. I'm not a fan nor interested in generic information like "“30 people have visited this site in the last 60 minutes”.
  • Great job, Boris. Just finished installing it on my blog. Love the customization options. Will see how it works for me...
  • Hi Boris. I'm still showing up in my own list. Are you still working on that?
  • TwitterRemote: see which Twitter users visit your site http://tinyurl.com/cmoc77
  • Neat, a MyBlogLog or FaceBook connect for Twitter: TwitterRemote http://tinyurl.com/cmoc77
  • Now visiting http://tinyurl.com/cmoc77 via TwitterRemote
  • Twitter Oauth is in beta.
  • I have added my profile to your widget, Im logged into my twitter account, i have allowed twitterremote to access my account and still I am not showing up in your widget. Do you know why?
  • Not showing up in your twitterremote widget: do you know why?
  • I have added the TwitterRemote widget to my blog (hyperlinked above). It's working fine, although like others I'm still showing up in my own list.
  • Hi!

    Just to let you know. I have added it on my website. Would be great if you can add my link on the list above who has implemented twitterRemote!

    Thanks

    David
  • Hi,

    Your site is one of my favorites seen around blog explosion. Keep up the good work.
    I enjoy reading your blog. It is great to find someone who can find the fun things in life!
    I wish you all the best in all years. I look forward to developing a friendship and networking with you.
    Take a look at my websites Aries Network in Europe.

    With Regards,
    Karoly Domonyi
    http://www.twitter.com/aries_hu
  • To bad i cannot use this on my own webpage. it looks super cool :)
  • Hey there,

    I want to know how to paste the html code from Twitterremote on my blogspot site.

    Help pls
blog comments powered by Disqus
 


TwitterCounter