With more and more developers building services on top of Twitter, more and more are also using Twitter’s avatars as the primary icons for their services. That’s great because for the user it means one less image to upload to yet another service. The problem with this is that if a user changes that avatar on Twitter, it could break it on the new service without you realizing it. So former Digg lead architect and current SimpleGeo (formerly known as Crash Corp). co-founder Joe Stump has created a simple service to get around that problem.
Called Tweetimag.es, basically the service allows developers to replace their calls to Amazon’s S3-hosted Twitter images and instead use a shorter img.tweetimag.es URL that will always pull your most recent Twitter avatar. So something like this:
http://a1.twimg.com/profile_images/396076570/Screen_shot_2009-09-03_at_2.04.12_AM.png
Can be replaced by this:
http://img.tweetimag.es/i/parislemon_o
As you can plainly see, the tweetimag.es URL is much preferred. And you can easily get different sized thumbnails simply by replacing the “_o” with “_m” for a 24×24 pixel avatar, “_n” for a 48×48 one, “_b” for a 73×73 one.
Stump envisions that developers may want to use Twitter usernames in a way similar to how email address are used for Gravatar images. With his solution, this will be possible.
And this will be montetized, how? Maybe replace every 1000th image served with a Viagra ad?
It won’t be. I created it because I needed a solution for SimpleGeo and I had a friend who needed a case study for something else.
This is a better way of getting avatars than using twitter.
Very useful.
RT @RuthAkers I hope Khole Kardashian doesn’t get too much junk for her wedding gifts. God knows she’s got no room left in her trunk
i think they changed their crash corp name to something else
http://www.joes...-is-hiring.html
ah, right thanks. i just thought that was the name of the first product under crashcorp. good catch.
Everyday for Twitter many software and web entrepreneurs are acclaiming global success in the internet marketing business.Going good with Twitter applications !
I started using this just recently and it solved MANY issues I has with speed on http://www.twittFilter.com Especially with the address book feature. Went from 60-90s to display all images to about 2-5s.
fyi they renamed apparently;
http://simplegeo.com/
yep, got it, thanks.
http://twivatar.org/ was way earlier on this.
If you want the open source equivalent, I put this together back in June: http://twivatar.org/
Easier urls iyam: http://twivatar...joestump/bigger
Wow..I have been waiting for something like this for years. Thank you Tweetimag.es
(sarcasm)
Same use as Gavatar. Lets see how it goes. Most people use same Twitter Icon and same Gavatar Icon. At least I do. But as twitter has very big user base. We have to see how it comes to picture.
Twavatar started doing this months and months ago (maybe a year or more?) and their URLs are easier to utilize as well.
Something like the good old Twivatar.org from @rem?
like it..simple but effective app..
Neat Idea, It used to be that your avatar should be a real picture to show that you are a real person, how ever that is no longer the case. These new avatars are helping to create brands across all social media sites.
Very cool. This is definitely solving a real pain point for developers. Another similar service I’ve used (and contributed to) is SPIURL from Shannon Whitley:
http://spiurl2.appspot.com/
Why don’t people just use Gravatar? It’s been around for ages and is already well established on most blogs. We should be encouraging Twitter to use this service. I put up a helper service a few weeks ago to push your Gravatar into Twitter as your profile picture (http://getgravatar.com) but I’d much rather Twitter natively support Gravatar rather than having to use yet another 3rd party service.
Great. I’m using Tweetimages for ChirpCity.com and Radaroo.com and everything is fine.
Using http://moodspin.com you can share your mood and change your avatar using cool icons.
learn more on http://moodspin.posterous.com
cool. first time i see a .es (spain) URL that is useful (in terms of domain name usage)
Well get ready to see another. I just started mychalleng.es this wkend and I’m hoping to build it up by getting challenged to complete fun, exciting and life building challenges.
hi nice tool,
you can scheduling to your tweets. see it
10 Ways To Scheduling Future Tweets
So, any guesses as to how long before this service goes under? Two months? Three months? Do I hear four months?
Goes under for what, a $5 hosting plan anywhere would cover this things requirements.
WTF?