The title I started with was ‘Does your web designer know you?’, but people will find it easier with the reference to Tweetbacks.
If you’re like me then you know how it is to depend on someone else for the maintenance & improvements on your website. There are many web designers out there. My suggestion is that you choose one that will take the time to get to know you & your needs.
This past week I had the opportunity to ‘meet’ Kate Niederhoffer,. Her specialty is social psychology & you’ll get insights into community & social behavior from a new direction. Her post on Learning, Organizing, Anticipating: Better reminded me of my web designer.
Kate’s post made me smile because my web designer has come to anticipate what I’d like on my site (and adds it without my asking!). As many of you know, my sister is the caretaker of my site. But she is intuitive in the way Kate suggests. She also uses my site as a testing ground for items for her other clients.
Usually I will see something & ask her to add it to my site. She enjoys the challenge of finding it & making it work. (We have been working together like this since January of 2007). So she is quite adept at anticipating what I’d like.
I’m excited to show you Heidi’s latest addition to my blog. On the right she has added tabs that show my Most Tweeted posts & ones that were Tweeted Lately
And then Heidi redid my comments section so it separate the comments into ‘written ones’, Tweetbacks for that post, and finally trackbacks. You can see it best on my post: Making a Business Case for Twitter. It also nicely pulls in the avatars from Twitter.
What do you think? Does it provide value to interlace the conversation from Twitter into my blog? The fragmentation of conversations presents a challenge. Not too long ago Heidi added the option for people to add their Twitter id when they comment. I’m glad to help my readers to connect with each other. Heidi can be found at SolutionsByHeidi.com
So, how well does your web designer know your needs? Are they keeping up with the trends in order to help your blog/site evolve with your community’s needs?
further reading: (from Pete Cashmore’s article on Mashable)
10 Ways Twitter Will Change Blog Design in 2009 – Rachel Cunliffe on TweetBacks, BlogTweet feeds and TwitterRolls.
Connie and Heidi,
Nice work! It’s great to see new useful Twitter features integrated into a blog. What’s next?
Thanks Connie.
And whats next? Who knows what the next thing will be because it is whatever catches Connie’s eye or mine.
I love that we can now integrate Twitter with our blogs. I also added Tweetbacks to my blog. This means I won’t miss any Tweets about my blog, gives another way for folks to comment and share.
I also think sometime people are more likely to share a helpful link on Twitter than they are to comment – and by tracking these at least we know that our community found it helpful.