Frequently Asked Questions

What is Twitterlive.net

Twitterlive.net is a web 2.0 service that lets you create a channel that automatically feeds your blog to twitter, track the clicks and collects real-time traffic data. Twitterlive.net launched in mid January 2010 and quickly became an alternative to the stablished services available.

Features

Twitter, Facebook, Ping.fm and other social networks available to feed your blog

Easily add your Rss feed; because all the settings are in just one page

Twitterlive gives you more control over your feed

Fetch new feed items now button availalable, so you can check your feeds at any time

Log entries that helps you keep track on your feed import- publish activities

Use a dropdown box to select the Twitter and facebook account you want to use

Set the frequency you want twtterlive to visit your site to fetch for new feed items

Set the interval you want the feed items to be published

Set the number of feed items you want to import

Twitterlive has its own url shortener service that collects real-time traffic data

Use bit.ly and other popular url shorteners

Use ping.fm to feed your blog to many social networks

Schedule Twitter and/or ping.fm updates

Schedule repetitive updates and set the frequency you want them to be posted

Twitterlive offers reliability due to its smaller user base

BlogsFeed or Twitterlive?

Actually both, but since Twitter is now a registered trademak from Twitter, Inc. we will make a transition from the name of Twitterlive to BlogsFeed. This site can be also accessed with the url of BlogsFeed.net

Getting Started

1. Sign up to twitterlive by creating a new account or login with your OpenID
2. Add a new feed channel using the rss url from your site
3. Watch the stats and track how many clicks your stories get

Do I need to enter my twitter username and password?

Not at all; this site uses Oauth to authenticate your credentials with twitter. Oauth is an open protocol to allow secure API authorization in a simple and standard method from desktop and web applications. Below is the screen you will see when you authorize this web site.

Architecture and Reliability

The twitterlive.net service has three components:

1. tiwtterlive.net: this is the visible part or user interface that allows you create the feed channels, view your stats, manage your account and browse the publishers channels.
2. twlv.net: this web application lives under its own domain name and its only function is to resolve the short urls generated by twitterlive.net and collect real-time traffic data.
3. twitterlive updater: this is a multithreading desktop application that is installed on a separate machine. This is the invisible part and the core component of the service that does the heavy weight lifting. The updater imports the feeds, short the urls and publishes the stories from your feed at the intervals set by you. Its work does not affect the performance of the main site and keeps doing its work even if the site is down for any reason.

Spamming Rules

Twiter is a great tool if it is used properly. Make sure you have something of value to feed your Twitter account. In general if you need to feed more than 30 updates to twitter per hour then this is not the service for you. Twitterlive has been created to promote and feed you blog to twitter as a marketing tool, but that doesn’t mean you should spam your followers.
We do not allow spamming, so if we feel that you are spamming, we will delete your feed. Feeds that direct to malware or phishing sites or illegal downloads will be deleted too. Do not use the same Rss Url to feed two different accounts, twitter considers this practice cross feeding and they will suspent the offender accounts. Twitterlive is no responsible if your twitter account get suspended. Follow these simple rules and you will have a long list of followers.

How can I feed my blog to all my social networks

If you have a PingFM account enter you API key on the "Add Feed" page, and any new feed item will be published on all the social networks you have linked with your PingFM account. Optionally if have created "Posting Groups" you can select to which group you want your updates to be published on.

Can I feed a social network via ping.fm that includes the title and description of the feed

Yes, you can use Twitterlive to post by title and desctiption to the social networks that support it. Enter your ping.fm API key, select "blog" from the "posting method" drop down box, (optionally you can enter the posting group), and select "Title-Description" from the "Post Content" drop down box. You can also uncheck "Post a Link" if you want to.
For more informatin read the ping.fm documentation about posting methods.

My feed is not updating to Ping.fm

Make sure you have set up your feed correctly. If you have selected on the ping.fm settings the "Microblog" or "Status" posting method and for the "Post Content" by title-description; ping.fm will not update your social network because it does not support updates by title and description. Only the "Blog" method does support updates by title and desctiption. Also make sure that have set up your social networks correctly on your ping.fm dashbord at the ping.fm web site.

I have an asterisk in front of my short links when I use the Ping.fm service

Twitterlive has to prepend the links to tell Ping.fm not to short any links. Login to your Ping.fm account, click settings, then default settings, uncheck "Track statistics on shortened links" and check "Shorten links in posts", click "Update Settings". After you make the changes the new links will not show the asterisk. You should do this because the asterisk render the links unusable by some Twitter clients.

Why can't twitterlive parse my feed?

First of all make sure you are using the url of your Rss feed and NOT the url of your Web Site.
 If you use Firefox or Internet Explorer 8 is very easy to find your Rss feed. Click the Rss feed icon located on the url address bar in Firefox or the Rss feed icon on the menu bar in IE8. See screen shots below.


As a general rule the Rss format works better than the Atom format.

 Blogspot users try the original Rss like this: http://myblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss
replace the "myblogname" with the name of your blog.

If you got a 403 error then your server may not be sending the appropriate credentials across the network. Check this forum for a solution or talk to your Web hosting provider.
If you got a 500, 502, 503 error then your server is not available a the moment. Please try again later.
Use this Web Tool to check your server headers and read more about server error codes. www.webrankinfo.com

Occasionally twitterlive cannot parse certain feeds specially old feedburner versions and Atom 1.0. Make sure you are using the url from the rss feed of your site and if you have multiple choices of feed select either Rss 2.0 or Atom 0.3 as these are the most likely to work with twitterlive. Try validating your feed at the W3 Feed Validation Service that will display common problems with Rss feeds, and if you still have problems please contact us and we'll try to help you.

When I try to add a twitter account I get this error: twitter returned error: (401) Unauthorized, and I know my account is active

Computers and browsers behave in different ways sometimes so they way to avoid this error is to login to your twitter account first and then click the "Authorize a twitter account" link on your twitterlive account page. After you allow Twitterlive (Tweetlive) access you will be redirect to your account page and magic should have happened.

I can't find my feed; I think it might have been deleted

The system automaticaly deletes all feeds that have been inactive for more that 30 days during every maintenance cycle. Paused feeds use hardware and software resources. It is also possible that you feed has been deleted due to high volume of updates or spamming. We reserve the right to remove any feed that has been flagged for posting too often and twitter or ping.fm is refusing to update.

The short url for my feed items says "Feed Item not Imported"; what does it mean.

That's because when you added your feed the check box "Do not import current feed items" was checked. That box is checked by default so you can make a smooth transition from other services. If you made a mistake and want to import the existing feed items from your blog you can delete the feed and add it again.

How do I change my time zone?

Yes, you can do this from your "settings" page. It's important that you select the right time zone.