I’ve noticed that your Twitter messages are automatically showing up in your Messenger status. How do you do that?

While having lunch with Leo from WorkConnexions the other day, we started talking about Twitter and how we’ve both started using it for micro-blogging. He wanted to know how my MSN Messenger status was getting updated with my Twitter posts, as he was pretty interested in being able to do the same thing.

The answer is a small addon for Messenger called Twessenger. I had blogged about this previously on another blog, but he must have missed the post. It lived in Messenger as an Add In and monitors your Twitter account on a regular basis, updating your Messenger status when there’s a new Tweet.

Installing Twessenger is pretty straightforward, though there is an extra step where a registry change needs to be applied. It requires Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0, but this has become as common as office furniture nowadays. Once the registry key and installation file are run, a new Add-In will show in your Options screen (see screen-shot). Click on settings to specify your Twitter ID (your ID not your username), and off you go. Don’t forget to enable the plugin to start it up. (I forgot that the first time round and couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t working!)