=============== somemodel/templatetags/twitter.py from django.template import Library import urllib import simplejson register = Library() @register.simple_tag def twitter_status( username ): url = "http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/%s.json?count=1" % username file = urllib.urlopen(url) json_responce = file.read() twit = simplejson.loads(json_responce) return "%s" % twit[0]["text"] ==================== yourtemplate.html {% load cache %} {% cache 1800 twit %} {% load twitter %}