Twitter is offering RSS feed links on public profile pages and the user’s own profile. The problem with user profile feeds is that they cannot be copied and pasted into many RSS readers since they require authentication, which many web based readers and some desktop readers do not support.
The solution? Gtweet, a service that acts as a proxy between Twitter RSS Feeds and feed readers such as Google Reader. Best of all, Gtweet connects directly to Twitter for the authentication so that the server will never see nor store the Twitter username or password.
All it takes to see the list of personal Twitter feeds is to click the sign in with Twitter button at the start page of the service. An authentication prompt is displayed on first run only, to allow Gtweet access to the information on Twitter.
Gtweet displays a list of available feeds on the next page. Available for free users are the timeline feed that is made up of the logged in user’s messages and messages from friends.
Three premium user feed types are available as well, which are currently beta tested. Users can request a beta invite for temporary free access to the following additional feeds:
- Mentions, which lists all mentions of the user on Twitter in an RSS feed.
- Lists, which is a feed of the user’s Twitter lists
- Searches, which displays the saved Twitter searches in feed form.
Preferences are available to change some formatting options in the feed. Here it is again important to distinguish between free and premium options. Free users can change the title formatting for individual messages and hide personal and / or retweets in the feed.
Premium users on top of that can configure the feeds to display linked images directly in the tweet body and to expand short urls to their actual web addresses.
Gtweet is fully compatible with all RSS readers including Google Reader. It can be used to access a personal Twitter RSS feed directly in those RSS reader. (thanks Roman for the tip)
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