We are very fortunate to have a very clever developer on hand who created some incredibly useful Twitter tools for us. Even better, we put them out as open source code on GitHub for you to use.
But what do these tools do and why should you be interested in them?
- Backup your tweets on a daily basis to an xml file on your local network
- Use keywords to send an auto direct message. Free text messaging via Twitter!
- If someone sends us (@wsdot) a direct message with the keywords “pass sno” we will send them back the current mountain pass conditions on Snoqualmie Pass.
- If someone sends us (@wsdot) a direct message with the keywords “tt seattle bellevue” the tools allow us to send them back the current travel times between Seattle and Bellevue.
- You can change this to feature any data set you want to send a text message response for via Twitter. There is ne caveat however: You must promise not to use this to send out “Thanks for following” direct messages!
These programs were written in Python, and you can download them here: http://github.com/wsdot
We also have our mobile applications available via open source at the same location if you want to get a start on an Android or iPhone application.
Thanks for sharing Jeremy.