I am happy to announce that Propeller can now speak Twitter! Twitter is a wildly popular micro-blogging platform that allows for broadcasting short (140 characters at maximum) messages to everyone in your Twitter network. Its popularity has risen sharply of late with exposure on major TV networks such as CNN, as well as with celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher and Oprah Winfrey. Much like our integration of the Facebook Connect platform announced a few weeks back, our Twitter features are designed to encourage new member signups by allowing accounts to be created using Twitter usernames and passwords, and to facilitate sharing of great content with your Propeller and Twitter networks. Let's take a look:

Sign in via Twitter



Clicking "Sign in with Twitter" redirects you to the Twitter web site, where you are asked to verify that you do indeed authorize Propeller to access and update your data on Twitter. The authentication protocol that allows this is called OAuth, which allows users to approve an application (in this case Propeller) to act on their behalf without sharing their password.The verification screen looks like this:



If you click "Allow", Propeller will then ask you to associate your Propeller account with this Twitter account. If you are new to Propeller, you can use this Twitter information to help you create a new Propeller account. The link (or create) screen looks like this:



And that's it! It should only take a minute to do this. Once you have connected your Twitter account to your Propeller account, you can take advantage of two great new Twitter-related features:

1. Submit story via Twitter

You can submit a story to Propeller simply by sending a direct message ("DM") to the official Propeller twitter feed, @PropellerDotCom. Your direct message should just include the URL you would like to submit to Propeller. Here's an example of a direct message that leads to a story submission:



Make sure to add @PropellerDotCom to the list of feeds that you are following, and please be patient, it can take up to an hour for your direct message to be transformed into a story post. The above direct message created a story submission looking like this:



2. Share story to Twitter

You can "Tweet" a Propeller story by using the Share Story feature on a Propeller story page. If you have associated your Twitter account with your Propeller account, you will see the following share window after clicking "Share Story":



Make sure that the "Tweet on Twitter" checkbox is checked, and click "Share It!" Clicking "Share It" will add a link to your Twitter feed that looks like this:



We are excited to invite the Twitter community to check out Propeller, as well as to offer these great authentication and sharing tools to existing Propeller members. Let us know if these features don't work for you.

Happy Twittering-
Tom (member tdrapeau)

PROPELLER IN A SMALL BOX

Today marks the first launch of a new Propeller module that we call "Propeller In A Small Box" internally. There are a lot of news modules out there, many of which are connected to user generated content. We have yet to see an example of one that does what PIASB does. It is designed to be installed on other sites, and gives the visitors of those sites the ability to submit links using the Propeller platform. The compact module view has two tabs, one (the default) showing the most popular links submitted by that site's visitors, and the other showing the most popular stories on Propeller overall.

Propeller has recently joined the MediaGlow unit of AOL, and our launch partner, Asylum.com, is also a member of MediaGlow. To view the module in action, simply go to Asylum and look at the right side rail (you'll need to scroll down a bit). The module is titled "Submit Your Favorite Links" and looks as follows (left is default tab, right is From Propeller):


To submit a link, you can use an existing Propeller.com account, an AOL Screen Name, or simply an E-mail address and password. Click on the "Submit A Story" link and paste in the URL (pictured). The Propeller system will suggest a title and description for the link, which you can edit. Pick a category and at least one tag (keyword), and click "Submit" -- that's it!


The expanded view is a full paginated list of all links submitted via the module, and can be seen here. Currently the module is optimized for the Blogsmith platform, but is by no means incompatible with major open source platforms such as Wordpress, Blogger or MovableType. If you are a website owner interested in a Propeller In A Small Box install, e-mail us!

COMMENT FIXES

We've also released a slew of fixes to our comment system. You have told us that viewing all comments for a story is harder than it needs to be, and that replying to a comment can be a jarring experience when the page reloads and the comment isn't immediately visible. We've fixed those items and have added a number of performance enhancements. You will now notice, on bigger comment threads, an option to "View All" comments. Clicking this link, as shown in the below screenshot, will bring you to a slightly stripped down page will all comments for the story represented.


Please let us know if we have fixed comments to your satisfaction. We've done a lot of good things with the release, but also look forward to your feedback on it.

TWITTER

You may have noticed a new section on the right side of the Propeller homepage titled "Recent Tweets From Twitter". Twitter is a microblogging platform that allows members to submit any form of text update, not to exceed 140 characters. We at Propeller have a twitter feed @PropellerDotCom, which you can follow directly on Twitter. For those who do not have an account on the service, you can view the latest five updates from the Propeller staff on the homepage section here -- or the whole list here. It currently looks like this:


We have great, great things in store for Propeller that we hope to share with you very soon. I want to thank all of the longtime Propeller members who have stuck by us -- it is much appreciated, and I hope that we are addressing any concerns you have about Propeller. If not, e-mail me and let me know.

Happy Propelling,
Tom