Recently, in a post on Mashable, we saw 10 ways Twitter will change blog design in 2009.

In 2009, Twitter will become much more tightly integrated with the rest of the blog in a variety of ways – watch out for tweetbacks and tweetstats to make their debut…

To most of us, the discussion created by blogs is almost as important as the blog content itself. With this discussion moving away from the actual blogs and onto services like Twitter and FriendFeed, bloggers are always looking for ways to bring these comments back to the source.

What Are Tweetbacks?

Tweetbacks allow your blog to import all Twitter updates that refer to a post as comments on that post. So, when people talk about your post on Twitter, it shows up on you blog as a comment. This is a relatively new concept as far as Twitter is concerned, but this feature has been available for FriendFeed for quite a while on wordpress, movable type, and blogger.

How Do I Get Tweetbacks?

There are currently two versions that I’m aware of. The first is a spin off from Dan’s original work, custom made for Smashing Magazine. They call this version Twittbacks and you can find the Wordpress plugin along with detailed installation instructions.

More recently, I learned of TweetSuite. This is actually a more comprehensive Twitter integration solution for Wordpress written by the original Tweetbacks developer. It seems easier to install than Twittbacks, which requires you to edit your wordpress template and insert some code in a few places. Once you install the TweetSuite plugin, it pretty much just works. Just enable it on it’s settings page.

TweetStats?

In addition to importing tweets about your content, you also have the option to add Most Tweeted and Recently Tweeted widgets to your sidebar. If you choose Twittbbacks, you’ll need to also install the Tweet Stats plugin. TweetSuite actually has these widgets built in, just enable them from the Settings page.

Have you enabled Tweetbacks on your blog? What issues did you run into, if any? Is it important to you to keep the discussion about your blog on your blog?