Textmarks keyword = Twitter hashtag

The challenge was to get the most possible users contributing to a communication system from my most possible devices while allowing all users to feel like they are contributing to the same thing and providing an added bonus for smartphone users. The solution is TweetMarks.

TweetMarks is a marriage of regular ol’ SMS and Twitter. It includes the most possible users while adding some cool functionality for smartphone users. Users who opt for the SMS version will receive tweets, and users who prefer the custom Twitter client will receive the text messages sent from the short code. Users are also free to use their preferred Twitter client. However the advantage of using the Twitter client, of course, is the ability to follow people who are at the event but you didn’t already know. It’s a web-based app, so users don’t have to worry about installing anything to their devices when they arrive at a museum, conference, bar, or club and find out there’s a cool communication tool available that they don’t have.

To achieve this I just added functionality to my Twitter client to send tweets as SMS through Textmarks. Likewise, SMS messages are tweeted. Hopefully this includes mostly everyone at an event who wishes to participate in a group communication, and users can use their preferred method of messaging. I’m really excited about this. There are limitless possibilities for this application not only at bars and clubs as originally envisioned, but any large space where people who don’t know each other gather.

On Wednesday, April 8 we will implement this system for singles night at Hugs in Brooklyn. We’re going to project all these messages onto a big screen. The system we customized for them looks great! Have a look. New messages slide in on the projection screen thanks to Scriptaculous. I didn’t do device detection on this one so you can check it out on the web or your mobile device. TweetMarks will also be the engine that drives BarTalk, our 1′ 2′ 10′ project.

Messaging client:
publk.com/hugs

Projection:
publk.com/hugs/projection

The third component for the Spring Show application will be a visualization of projects. It will be a map with dots indicating a project’s location. There will be a yet undecided amount of information regarding each project in the visualization, but our text component includes a “Respect” field in which the user will enter a project identifier. The more respect a project receives, the more its corresponding dot pulsates on the map.

People have toyed with the idea of visualizing projects at the show in this sort of way. Some have challenged the idea claiming that it turns the show into a popularity contest. However people come to the show with a completely different perspective. There are so many projects, so much noise, and so very many people finding interesting projects may be a challenge in and of itself. If an excellent project gets stuck in the back corner behind 1000 patrons it may never be seen without a little help. Our visualization will help to democratize the projects in the show. And let’s face it, every project in the show is excellent.

The text component is a custom-made Twitter client designed for mobile devices. It will be available on the web on the night of the show. The client will act just like your current client, with access to your own personal content, but it also includes a special #itpshow feed. Every message sent from the client is appended with the hashtag, and our client will give you all Tweets corresponding to it. You can read what people are saying about the show and projects, do some networking of your own, or find out if any of your friends are around. You can follow anyone who tweets with the hashtag, so you are sure to make a few new contacts.

It is completely unstyled, but please see the prototype. Just log in to see what we mean.
http://itp.nyu.edu/~jkb315/bartalk/login.php

The easiest way to do this would be to use OBEX to push the device’s Bluetooth ID to itself in the form of a message and instruct the user to forward that message to 41411 + keyword (of course, the device’s Bluetooth still must be turned on). That way the user has to do no signing up or digging around for their Bluetooth ID. You can parse the ID and store it along with the corresponding phone number. Then the device will receive subsequent messages when it is detected by the app.

Here are a couple files to get you started. The Processing file is modified from the bluetoothDesktop library to include a HTTP request to the script that checks the database for devices and sends messages. You will also need Textmarks class files.

Processing source
PHP source

Give it a try! http://summermittens.com/1210/10 (mobile & desktop)

If you don’t have an iPhone, you can still try it using http://summermittens.com/1210/10/iphone.html as the controller.

If you would like to make this yourself and need a script, use this one.

A user’s mobile phone is automatically detected via Bluetooth when they walk into the bar. Once this happens, the user will be able to interact with the bar and with other BarTalk users in close proximity, resulting in a mobile social network of complete strangers in your immediate surroundings. Development will include a mobile component that will be the primary interface communication, a web service for new users to register with and for bars to run the application on, and a TV to display user-generated media and facilitate participation.

This project expands upon the first iteration of BarTalk.

Here’s how it works:

Text ‘oscar’ (no quotes) followed by your message to 41411. For example:

oscar happy bday!
oscar you’re late

Send your text anytime tomorrow, and you’ll automatically be logged in for the evening. You can easily unsubscribe at any time via a reply (simple instructions included in message), but we don’t recommend that because you’ll be missing out on a crazy underground gossip convention. You will be unsubscribed automatically and forever the following morning anyway. If people use it and like it we’ll do it for every future TNO too.

Only one disclaimer: please don’t hurt anyone, just have fun with it!

Also, to whomever is actually hosting TNO, bartenders can get in on this too. They can offer a free beer to the next idiot who takes his shirt off, beer specials for first person to recite the contents of a message, and so on. Bartenders might want to participate too!

Ok everyone, please try this out, for real, cuz we think it’s cool and fun. We will appreciate your feedback after the night is over. Thanks and have fun!

A few questions answered

Q: How does this work?
A: Well it’s built on a service called Textmarks (www.textmarks.com). It’s free and great for prototyping mobile applications

Q: Is it really anonymous?
A: Well it is assuming that you are not already a member of Textmarks, where you’d have a username associated with your phone number. Even then people would have to know what your username is.

Q: Is this spam?
A: It’s an opt-in service, so no. Be aware that while we are testing this version, you will receive every message from every subscriber. In the future we hope to have more filtering options. You can unsubscribe at any time using instructions provided in messages you receive, and tomorrow morning we will manually forever unsubscribe anyone who has not already done so.

Q: What’s up with the ads? Are you clowns cashing in on this?
A: We wish. Since Textmarks is free, we have to give something back in the form of letting them put some stupid ads in the bottom of the messages. On this issue, Josh says, “Whatevs.”

Here is a screenshot of our mySQL message database. It’s clear that our service was being used as intended.

You can try it out for yourself using this sample script.

You’ll want to auto-subscribe users just to take out a step of the process. Just make sure they know they are being subscribed. To broadcast all messages to all subscribers, set up your Textmarks configuration something like this: