Send @replies/mentions via SMS?

[TjL]

I've been banging my head against this for several days (when I've had
"free time") and wonder if maybe someone has already invented this
wheel.

I'm looking for a way to get @replies (sorry, I mean "mentions") via SMS.

*ahem*
Ideally this would be an officially supported option
listed in http://twitter.com/devices :-)
*ahem*

But, since it isn't :-)

My idea has been to fetch the
http://twitter.com/statuses/mentions.format every minute or so, check
against a cache of previously sent "mentions" and send the new ones
(as DMs to myself, since I have DMs forwarded to my cell via SMS
already).

This seems HUGELY inefficient (i.e. there will be a LOT of minutes
throughout the day which return no new "mentions") but I can't think
of a more efficient way of getting them in a fairly timely manner.

Thanks for any pointers.

TjL

[Arik Fraimovich]

Someone already developed an application that forwards mentions to DM
(see here: http://apiwiki.twitter.com/Application-Ideas).

When I tried it, it didn't work that good, but I think he did some
changes since then.

On May 11, 8:15 am, TjL <luo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I've been banging my head against this for several days (when I've had
> "free time") and wonder if maybe someone has already invented this
> wheel.
>
> I'm looking for a way to get @replies (sorry, I mean "mentions") via SMS.
>
> *ahem*
>                Ideally this would be an officially supported option

> listed inhttp://twitter.com/devices:-)

> *ahem*
>
> But, since it isn't :-)
>

> My idea has been to fetch thehttp://twitter.com/statuses/mentions.formatevery minute or so, check

[Paul Kinlan]

Hi,

Just to let you know, I developed www.twe2.com exactly for this purpose.  However, we have just been blocked by our SMS provider.

It is a shame really because we sent 2 million SMS's to the Twitter community,

Paul

2009/5/11 Arik Fraimovich <ari...@gmail.com>

[Patrick Burrows]

Why were you blocked?

And there seems to be a lot of competition in this space (SMS Gateway providers) can’t you just go to someone else?

 

--

Patrick Burrows

http://Categorical.ly (the Best Twitter Client Possible)

@Categorically

[Patrick Burrows]

If this is just for yourself, then you could send them through your carrier
provided SMS to email gateway (as far as I know, every carrier provides
one.) It is an email address that you can use to send yourself text
messages. For instance, for AT&T, it is <yourphonenumber>@txt.att.net. An
email sent there will show up as a txt message on that person's phone.

As far as actually getting the replies from Twitter -- polling every minute
or so is the only way.

Oh, and if this is for more than just yourself, there are 3rd party SMS
Gateways that know all the formats for the different mobile carriers.

Check out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_gateways

--
Patrick Burrows
http://Categorical.ly

@Categorically

-----Original Message-----
From: twitter-deve...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:twitter-deve...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of TjL
Sent: Monday, May 11, 2009 1:16 AM
To: twitter-deve...@googlegroups.com

[Paul Kinlan]

Hi,

We don't know why we were blocked, we had a commercial contract in place - but the provider aren't very forthcomming.  The model that was used was an "Adsense" for mobiles, which meant that we were supposed to be paid for every message we processed, however the network never attached any adverts other than their own so we never got paid (but that has been the status quo for the last month).  We were in talks with another company to buy our service from us and still use Wadja - we enquired to with Wadja to see if our contract was transferable; they cut us off.

Finding another SMS gateway that will send messages worldwide for free is going to be hard - there is a reason why twitter pulled out of many markets (until they negotiated better deals - Vodafone etc).  So if any twitters out there want to talk or know any one who can help we are all ears.

To answer another question: not many phone networks provide Email to SMS - after all there is lots of money to be had for sending SMS's, even a 1pence/cent per SMS.  But if you do have a provider that can accept emails then the whole process if very easy to replicate.

Paul.

2009/5/11 Patrick Burrows <pbur...@categorical.ly>

[surya sravanthi]

hi,
I am trying to develop an application using twitter API's(using
twitter4j jar file). Can you suggest me a method to acess users
replies without knowing the users password(I have the users username
in the data base).

Surya Sravanthi

[Patrick Burrows]

That sure is odd. I know this is off-topic, but have you tried to see if your customers would be willing to pay for the service you offer?

 

Actually, it sounds like that is what you are going to have to do…

[TjL]

Well, I started over and about two hours later I had a script written.

I've been testing / tweaking it today and it does seem to work.

Basic premise is fairly simple, it checks
"http://twitter.com/statuses/mentions.rss?since_id=$LAST_ID"

where $LAST_ID is stored in a text file as the last ID that was found/forwarded.

I then send the message as a DM to myself, which has the added benefit
of being able to use the http://twitter.com/devices setting for "quiet
hours" already. (I have DMs sent to forward to my cell already)

I also built in some rudimentary filtering to avoid some *people*
(such as reTweet bots) and some regex (such as "RT @tj" and "(via @tj)
since I don't need/want those sent via SMS.

One benefit of using the 'mentions' API vs the search API (which was
what I had originally tried) is that it automatically excludes people
that you have blocked, which search does not.

My plan is to check it out for a few days, and if it seems to work
I'll write up a description of how it works and post the code as well.

If anyone would like to see it in its current state, drop me a note
(preferably offlist, so everyone doesn't have to see it) at
luo...@gmail.com

TjL

[Derek Gathright]

If you (or anyone else) is still looking for something, I have a bot that I wrote a while back at twitter.com/dmreply.  Just request to follow, I'll approve, and then it will automatically forward any @replies to you via a DM.  Your account has to be public as it uses Twitter Search to retrieve the tweets.  Simple, requires no authentication info, unfollow at anytime to turn off the service.

Honestly, I can't use Twitter anymore without it.  Getting instant feedback is essential to the real-time nature of Twitter conversations.  Hopefully the Twitter team is working on integrating this functionality into the product in the near future.  It is something I'd certainly pay for.  I remembered trying to do it back in the Track days, but tracking @derek failed miserably as it dropped the @ and I instantly got swamped with tweets mentioning "derek".

If anyone wants the source, I'll see what I can dig up, but really it's pretty dead simple.  Look for @dmreply followers, loop through each follower looking for mentions in the Twitter Search API, send any new tweets that haven't already been sent.  The only trick is storing info on what tweets have been sent, and that's just done with SQLite

[TjL]

On Tue, May 12, 2009 at 11:34 AM, Derek Gathright <drg...@gmail.com> wrote:
> If you (or anyone else) is still looking for something, I have a bot that I
> wrote a while back at twitter.com/dmreply.  Just request to follow, I'll
> approve, and then it will automatically forward any @replies to you via a
> DM.  Your account has to be public as it uses Twitter Search to retrieve the
> tweets.  Simple, requires no authentication info, unfollow at anytime to
> turn off the service.

That's how I started, but then I realized that people I have blocked
would be sent, and I have a (very) few followers whose updates are
protected, and I wouldn't see there.

Of course as soon as I finished this, I realized that what would be
*better* for my use would actually be email notification of
'mentions', so that's what I'm working on now. The nice thing is that
you're not bound to 140 characters in email, so I can also include
what the message was in_reply_to (I have a few followers who @reply
HOURS later and I often have no idea what they are referring to), and
hopefully even a link to @reply back to them, including a proper
in_reply_to also.

> I remembered trying to do it back in the Track days, but tracking @derek
> failed miserably as it dropped the @ and I instantly got swamped with tweets
> mentioning "derek".

Yeah, I'm thinking about using the search API for a "roll my own"
"track" functionality too.

TjL

[Derek Gathright]

Yeah, I'm thinking about using the search API for a "roll my own" "track" functionality too.

Rebuilding Track is a fun little project.  I've done it various ways, but the problem I always run into is the scalability once I publicize it.  Early versions of my Twitter client (Tweenky) had the ability to track queries and have them delivered via SMS, email, DM, and XMPP.  Having those delivery options on a per query basis made it very powerful as some things you care little about, but still wish to track (hourly aggregate by email).  Other things have high priority and I want to be notified right away (via SMS).

So, if you feel like building your own Track, consider various delivery methods per query, as well as keeping in mind the scalability if publicly launching it, cause it's easy to do up until that point.  Most of my Twitter stuff is just private little projects, for that reason.  Tweenky (new.tweenky.com) being the exception, because now it's all written in Javascript and doesn't use any server-side code, eliminating the scalability issue. =)

Good luck.   

[Derek Gathright]

and doesn't use any server-side code

Well, let me clarify, uses very little server-side code.  (before someone corrects me)