The video is a bit fast and choppy, but the fundamental process is:
This was really a set it and forget it style SEO attempt. Back in July 2009 I noticed that when I searched for dual monitor backgrounds I ended up on the same site repeatedly and decided there may be a market there. I launched 2xbg.com with no almost content at all until November 2009 with only basic SEO conepts in mind. Acutally it still has virtually no content... just goes to show that SEO is all about the simple and clean basics.
Now I can start to push it a bit further.
A friend of mine asked for a slideshow for his little league football team... I told him we dont do slideshows. Quality is sketchy thru YouTube.
Thought I would share my homebrew Twitter framework. I'll post a sample app using it in a bit.
Imports System
Imports System.IO
Imports System.Net
Imports System.Web
Public Module twitter
'hard coded for testing
Public username As String = "YOUR USER NAME"
Public password As String = "YOUR PASSWORD"
Public FriendTimeline As String = "http://twitter.com/statuses/friends_timeline/{0}.xml"
Public Publictimeline As String = "http://twitter.com/statuses/public_timeline.xml"
Public Archive As String = "http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/{0}.xml"
Public Replies As String = "http://twitter.com/statuses/replies.xml"
Public Direct As String = "http://twitter.com/direct_messages.xml"
Public AuthUser As String = "http://twitter.com/account/verify_credentials.xml"
Public Update As String = "http://@twitter.com/statuses/update.xml"
Public Followers As String = "http://twitter.com/statuses/followers.xml"
Public Function Push(ByVal username As String, _
ByVal password As String, _
ByVal action As String, _
Optional ByVal mode As Integer = 0) As String
Dim req As WebRequest
If mode = 0 Then
req = HttpWebRequest.Create(String.Format(action, username))
Else
req = HttpWebRequest.Create(String.Format(action))
End If
req.Credentials = New NetworkCredential(username, password)
Try
'returns raw xml
Dim res As WebResponse = req.GetResponse()
Dim ret As StreamReader = New StreamReader(res.GetResponseStream())
Dim retData As String = ret.ReadToEnd()
ret.Close()
Return retData.ToString
Catch ex As Exception
Return "There was an error please try again..."
End Try
End Function
Public Function PostStatus(ByVal status As String) As String
Dim ret As String
Dim req As WebRequest = HttpWebRequest.Create(Update)
System.Net.ServicePointManager.Expect100Continue = False
req.Credentials = New NetworkCredential(username, password)
req.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"
req.Method = "POST"
Dim encoding As System.Text.ASCIIEncoding = New System.Text.ASCIIEncoding()
Dim bt() As Byte = encoding.GetBytes(String.Format("status={0}", status))
Dim s As Stream
Try
req.ContentLength = bt.Length
s = req.GetRequestStream()
s.Write(bt, 0, bt.Length)
Catch ex As Exception
Throw ex
End Try
Try
'returns raw xml
Dim res As WebResponse = req.GetResponse()
If res Is Nothing Then
Return Nothing
End If
Dim sr As StreamReader = New StreamReader(res.GetResponseStream())
ret = sr.ReadToEnd().Trim()
sr.Close()
Catch ex As Exception
Throw ex
End Try
Return ret
End Function
End Module