D-Blog » twitter

My SMS to Twitter System – In Breif.

Dan — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 23:00:44 +0000

I thought I should make a post to shout about the system I am currently developing (Currently in Alpha) which is an alternative SMS to Twitter system – eg. You text TW followed by your message and that gets tweeted out on your Twitter account.

Now firstly I will explain WHY I have made this because I know lots of people might think, why bother, twitter already have that!

But alas, not quite. Twitter does have a UK text number, however it has a rather irritating downfall, its a Isle of Man number… so on some networks – like mine T-mobile – which do not have any special deals for the twitter number it means texting this number isn’t included in your SMS allowance and is charged at International Region 1 rates, which is 25p/SMS last time I checked! Which is a lot more than the 3 – 10p PAYG customers might pay, and a damn site more than the cost of unlimited texts.

So now you know the reason, texting this number is cheaper for some people because its properly UK based.

Now for a little bit of tech.

The way the Alpha system is currently working is very bare-bones; there is currently no front end at all and it is purely based on 2 cron jobs working with 2 databases.

My aim is to develop the system so it has a SMS Api/Gateway core, which is the part of the system which interfaces with the actual SMS gateway I am working with, so this runs and grabs all new SMS messages on my account and stores them to the core database.

I then have the SMS to Twitter part or App which then interfaces with the core system, to retrieve and process SMS messages for tweeting.

So as the text system is based off keywords eg, SMS must start with “Tw” or “dansgalaxy” to be picked up, so I register all the keywords with the gateway, and then the core system picks up all the SMS for my account picks out all the info and dumps it into a database so i can easily find and process the SMS and then you have Apps which can interact with the core database to use the SMS.

So currently the SMS to Twitter system is based on a keyword of “tw” so the App authenticates with my core system, and is then able to retrieve the SMS messages which uses the keyword of “tw”.

The system then checks the information for the SMS, picks out the senders phone number, which is then looks up in database to and finds the account holder, and is then able to tweet the users SMS using Twitter Authentication details stored in the database.

Because the system is in Alpha, currently it is very basic however I have great plans for this system and hope I can develop it into a full system where users who wish to use it can sign up authenticate the system with their Twitter account using OAuth instead of the username/password combination and enjoy a simple tool.

All thoughts and suggestions welcome.

1 Year on Twitter

Dan — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 16:03:48 +0000

Cool image made by friend @cj27yeah Cheers Chris!

Its now been a whole year since i first joined the Twitterosphere and dived into Twitter.com, now a year on and i am still hooked, which is quite an achievement as the only other site i am this involved with and has managed to keep me hooked is probably YouTube.

Offical Twitter Accounts – Worth a Look!

Dan — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:53:06 +0000

Twitter has become a massive force on the Internet, I am wrapped up in it and tweet obsessively (@Dansgalaxy) as well as managing many twitter accounts and twitter bots.

As well as this other (bigger) businesses are taking advantage of twitter and using it as a way to communicate with their users, often it can be hard to tell which accounts are official here’s a list of companies / celebrities twitter accounts which are worth a look.

Microsoft:

@Microsoft – Main MS account being run and managed by the corporate communications team
@MSWindows – Announcing Windows 7
@WindowsLive – Official Twitter account of Microsoft Windows Live
@liveframework – liveframework
@livemesh – Sync, share, and access the information you care about—wherever you happen to be.
@SharePoint – The official tweetstream of the SharePoint product group – managed by @LLiu
@bizspark – Microsoft BizSpark – Software, Support, Visibility
@zunemarketplace – Zune Marketplace is a store for the way you love music, with brand-new releases every week and a huge selection of music in every style imaginable
@wmdev – Windows Mobile
@microsofttag – Microsoft Tag
@ch9 – listen to the cockpit, help us fly the plane
@ch10 – Channel 10 is Microsoft’s online community for the technology enthusiast
@ch8 – Microsoft’s community for students
@mixonline – Come check us out at www.visitmix.com
@MIX09 – The Next Web Now, pre-empted by @MIX07, @MIX08 and @PDC08
@SiteNamedDesire – Want a copy of A Website Named Desire? This li’l birdie will tell you how. Wait for the tweets.
@MicrsftTech4All – News from Microsoft Accessibility team, which strives for technology to be usable by everyone & complements our physical & cognitive abilities.
@MSDN – Updates from the MSDN site team.
@adCenterBlog – News, Tips, Tricks & Best Practices From The Guys At Microsoft adCenter

[ Most Microsoft twitter accounts sourced from on10.net ]

Tech News:

Twitter can be a great place to stay on top of the latest tech news, and I often use it as a basic RSS system, and am often reminded to check out TechCrunch.com or the Guardians tech articles when i see their tweets.

@TechCrunch – TechCrunch.com is a great tech news blog with some interesting stories.
@GuardianTech – Tech stories from the Guardian
@Twit – This Week In Tech
@NYT_tech – New York Times Tech
@TimesTech – Times (of London) Technology News
@Digg_Technews - Popular technology stories from Digg.com
@msntech – Tech and Gadget news from MSN
@BBCClick – The BBC’s flagship technology TV show.

News:

@BBCbreaking – Breaking News stories from the BBC.
@Reuters – Reuters breaking news stories.
@SkyNews – SkyNews news stories.
@GoogleNews – Breaking news stories and updates from Google News
@CNNbrk – CNN.com is among the world’s leaders in online news and information delivery.
@NBCnews – NBC News — a leading source of global news and information for more than 75 years

Twitter Bots:

Twitter bots are becoming a fun part of the Twitterosphere (Twitter community). Twitter Bots can be like marmite, you either love them or hate them as with most things.

Personally I love some twitter bots (particularly the ones i run) and tend to take the view of don’t like it don’t follow.

Here’s a few of mine and others which I follow which are worth checking out.

@JacksonBot – Picks up tweets about Micheal Jackson
@LMAObot – Picks up anything with “LOL”, “Lmao”, “ROFL” etc in it picks up some random and funny tweets.
@IsDeadBot – Picks up tweets about all things er dead. Which can be more interesting than you might think.
@NoteRobot – Retweets “Note to self” tweets, very funny and some random laughs!
@LuvOrHate - Picks up on what people love and hate, again some random interesting tweets – Created by @aaronbassett.

Celebrity Twitterers:

There is no doubt that celebrities have jumped on the twitter bandwagon, be it for self promotion or simply to tweet their life.

I wont go into an extensive list of Celeb twitterers, as there are lots so instead I will share my favourite picks and share with you some great celeb twitter stalker sites!

@StephenFry is one of my favourite twitterers with some interesting posts and insights into an interesting mans life as he goes about his day to day tasks, from visits to the apple store to ponderings a must follow for twitter users.

@lilyroseallen is one of my favourite artists (I know maybe a little sad) but i do love her, and from what i can tell she tweets for “real” and isn’t using twitter purely as a publicity vehicle, which i like you get to see Lily Allen the person.

One of the difficult parts about the web is you don’t really know if the person you are following is the person you think it is, this is where Valebrity.com comes in. Valebrity enables you to “validate” celebrities online so you know who your following is who it says it is!

Worth checking out if you want to follow your favourite celebs.

Also came across a blog post on Mashable.com which is worth checking it out which has 25 celebrities accounts from actors, musicians, politicians and writers which is worth checking out too.

So take a look, follow people and get involved in the wonderful world of twitter!

Don’t forget to follow @Dansgalaxy for updates and randomness from the world of Dan.