Cusomize your tweet!!!

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 21:42:00 -0400

Finally, you, my wonderful lastfmlovetweet user, can customize your tweet format to be whatever you like.
The default format has caused some dissatisfaction, and in polling you all to see what it should be it was clear that people had very different ideas. So, now it can be whatever your <3 (or ♥) desires.

Heres how it works:

You send a direct message to the lastfm_love user with the text you want (using the format described below), and then the lastfm_love user will set that to be your tweet format AND send you back a direct message with an example of how your format would look with your most recently loved track.

Examples:

For the example below I will use the track “Livin’ on a Prayer” by the inimitable Bon Jovi.
The current default is:
#lastfm #love Livin’ on a Prayer by Bon Jovi http://bit.ly/Wc1mt
Lets say that you want your tweet to be:
I freakin’ LOVE Livin’ on a Prayer by Bon Jovi. It ROCKS! Check it out here: http://bit.ly/Wc1mt
Then the direct message you would send lastfm_love would be:
tweet format I freakin’ LOVE %t by %a. it ROCKS! Check it out here: %l
The first 2 words, “tweet format”, tell lastfm_love that you want to change your tweet format. The rest of the message is the format you want but the artist, track, and link are replaced by the following placeholders:

%a = artist
%t = track name
%l = link

The other parts of the tweet (The “I freakin’ LOVE”, “by”, and “It ROCKS! Check it out here:”) are static text and dont change from tweet to tweet. The %a, %t, and %l get filled in with whatever track you just loved.

Testing

If you aren’t sure about whether your format is correct, and you just want to test it out, then add the work “test” after “tweet format” and your will receive the test message, but your tweet format will NOT be changed. For example, sending the following direct message:
tweet format test I freakin’ LOVE %t by %a. it ROCKS! Check it out here: %l
will cause the direct message response to be sent, but will NOT change your tweet format.

More examples:

tweet format:
♥ Livin’ on a Prayer by Bon Jovi http://bit.ly/Wc1mt
message to send:
tweet format ♥ %t by %a %l

tweet format:
OMFG I ♥ Bon Jovi’s Livin’ on a Prayer http://bit.ly/Wc1mt
message to send:
OMFG I ♥ %a’s %t %l

If Things go Wrong:

If you need to reset your tweet format back to the default, send the following direct message:
tweet format default

Welcome to the LastFMLoveTweet blog!

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 12:41:00 -0400

This blog will serve several functions:

Announce new features - I have a few ideas…
Status notifications - I will tweet the major status issues, such as extended service outages, but here I will post minor updates as well.
Discussion - This blog has disqus comments enabled, so some discussion can occur here.
How Tos - As I add new features, I will NOT be making them accessible via the web interface. Rather, they will be accessible via twitter. This is because I want the web page sign up process to be as simple as possible. Instructions for using advanced features will be available on this blog, and tagged with howto.

If there is anything else you want out of this blog, please let me know in the comments below. This project has been a lot of fun for me so far, and I greatly appreciate the interest and feedback I have received!