Why Aren't You Blogging Right Now?

In which we highlight the greatness of Blogger’s new “Add a Page Element” feature.

As much as you’d like to be sitting in front of your computer blogging all day every day there are times when you have to stand up and go outside. Maybe you need to walk to school or work. Maybe you’re even out having fun and doing things that will make a good blog post later. But why wait?

You can put a little status message on your blog telling your friends and readers what you are doing right this very minute—and you can update that message by texting with your cell phone. For example, Evhead is updating his status on his blog from his phone while travelling in Morocco. Blogger’s new “Add a Page Element” makes it super easy to display your current Twitter as a status message on your blog.

How to Put Twitter on Your Beta Blog

Adding Twitter to your beta blog is as easy as adding any new page element to your layout. You will of course need to get a free Twitter account first (they only ask for your phone number for texting purposes and they never reveal it to anyone). Once you decide which blog you want to edit, do the following:

1. From the Dashboard click “Layout”
2. Click “Add a Page Element”
3. Choose the HTML/JavaScript element
4. Visit http://twitter.com/t/account/badge
5. Copy the Twitter code
6. Paste code into Blogger element box and save

Now whenever you’re out in the world doing stuff you can text what you’re doing to 40404 (the Twitter shortcode) and that update will show up on your blog in the little Twitter widget thingy. You can also update it from the web at Twitter.com and if you add friends they can get your updates sent to their phones. If you have questions visit Twitter Help or contact help@twitter.com.

Note: Non Beta-Blogger folks can place the Twitter code directly in their template like any other blog add-on. There’s more about template tweaking at Blogger Help.