To compliment the podcast player on my GoToTalk Network site, I used to have some RSS news feeds populate the main content window of each topical page. That process was fairly server intensive, as all the work was done behind the scenes.

Now that almost all news services send out Tweets of their posted stories, it makes more sense to now just place a twitter feed tool in the main content area and select the appropriate news sources. I found a really nice WordPress plug-in to just that.

This is not your typical twitter widget to show your tweets on your page. No, this is a real-time twitter feed display, programmed to watch for any number of users or hashtags. You can set the refresh time, number of tweets to show on the page and if it continuously updates or just displays the latest and stop.

All the work is done on the client side, using your browser Javascript, getting the latest tweets in real time from Twitter directly. The podcast episodes are still listed on the sidebar, most recent first and ready to play in the MP3 player. While listening to the latest programs, you can watch for any breaking news on the topic you’re listening to.