Scripting News - Latest Comments in Building TwitterGram into a really big thing! (Scripting News)

Re: Building TwitterGram into a really big thing! (Scripting News)

Nathan Snell — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 00:18:32 -0000

In terms of getting TwitterGram as a key feature, I'd imagine it may look more attractive as Utterz begins to gain more traction (and as someone already has mentioned utterz in the comments). Although I suppose that also depends on whether they are focusing specifically on text and leaving the other mediums of communication up to their competitors (seesmic & utterz).

Re: Building TwitterGram into a really big thing! (Scripting News)

Prashanth Rai — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 01:06:56 -0000

Dave, this might be a stretch idea but thought I will put it out there and get some feedback. One of the potential uses I was thinking of for twittergram was in the salesforce, Sales men are required to update their customer interactions into the CRM system, but everybody involved with a sales force knows how difficult it is to get them to do it. Infact some organizations have hired offshore staff to take calls from salespeople and update the CRM System.

But I was thinking if these people can call into a special number and record their interaction / update with a client as a twittergram, The data could be made available thru twitter to the followers, also the mp3 could be loaded into the CRM system for that particular customer reference, And if required the backend staff could access the same and make updates. Of course can evaluate speech to text and do some cool stuff with that as well and extend it further.

As a start Twittergram could set this functionality up with Salesforce.com as a part of the App exchange.

Would love to hear your thoughts?

Re: Building TwitterGram into a really big thing! (Scripting News)

Munir Umrani — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 23:30:31 -0000

Dave,

Like Alan Levy, I'm glad to see you are thinking about building a business around twittergram. My only suggestion is to make certain that you legally dot every "I" and cross every "T". Although it might seem contrary to the sense of community we seek to build, sound contracts with the people you decide to work with are essential. It's better to pay a few thousand dollars now rather than millions later.

Re: Building TwitterGram into a really big thing! (Scripting News)

bart — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 22:19:46 -0000

Have you check out what jott.com or the guys from big in japan are doing with text to speech and twitter ?

Re: Building TwitterGram into a really big thing! (Scripting News)

dave — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 16:46:21 -0000

Alan, that's good. Glad you're still on board. I had a great meeting with Loic where he talked some sense into me about this one. Thank goodness for friends who intervene!! I already have the first round of changes planned. Let's talk after the holiday.

Re: Building TwitterGram into a really big thing! (Scripting News)

Alan Levy — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 15:11:26 -0000

As the present telecom provider to the twittergram, BlogTalkRadio sees significant opportunities in non asynchronous micro-podcasting platforms. Dave, I am glad you endorse building a business around this technology.

Re: Building TwitterGram into a really big thing! (Scripting News)

Michael Buckbee — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 04:20:34 -0000

YAML is a super lightweight, human readable data serialization format that could be used to provide an enclosure element like functionality to Twitter.

This is separate from Twittergram or Utterz, but is a more general thought on how Twittercasting of any media type could be done (video, presentations, pictures, whatever).

Dave's Twittergram Tweet from earlier would be expressed as:

--- Phoned-in TwitterGram
url: http://tinyurl.com/yqxfl6
type: mp3

I've posted some more examples, caveats, a further explanation of YAML and some other thoughts at: http://tinyurl.com/yv435p

Re: Building TwitterGram into a really big thing! (Scripting News)

christian — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 01:49:31 -0000

Hi Dave,
Here are my thoughts about twittergram in the form of an audio post http://www.utterz.com/~u-ND...

Here is an example of a post my friend did about computer classes in Uganda that I posted to my tumblr from utterz http://christianburns.tumbl... notice the replies from people that he does not even know.

Re: Building TwitterGram into a really big thing! (Scripting News)

Ryan Price — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 00:33:24 -0000

Dave, if you do get this business going, I'd be a client. I would offer to work with you, but I live in Florida, and I think you prefer people in the valley... right?

Anyway, I have a conference reporting gig I do and I'd love to have people call a phone number and have their messages posted to a twitter/feed right away - I'm sure there are a few ways to do this, but it needs to be dead-simple and to my knowledge most services out there aren't right now.

Re: Building TwitterGram into a really big thing! (Scripting News)

Jauder Ho — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 23:42:44 -0000

You can kind of do that already with Grandcentral (barring the RSS feed). However, I personally hate voice mail so would do anything possible to avoid it.

Re: Building TwitterGram into a really big thing! (Scripting News)

derek — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 23:11:45 -0000

I'd love to see office voice mail "twittergrammed" and appear in an enterprise twitter feed. I hate remembering keys to access voice mail, delete, and then do same with the mp3 which the system sends to my email. An office lifestream, or role-stream, would allow me to watch as the messages roll through my day, like logging timber down the amazon

Re: Building TwitterGram into a really big thing! (Scripting News)

dave — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 20:50:21 -0000

Every TwitterGram user has their own RSS 2.0 feed with enclosures.

Here's mine...

http://mp3.twittergram.com/...

Re: Building TwitterGram into a really big thing! (Scripting News)

vrypan — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 20:44:42 -0000

Taking this one step further: lobby Feedburner to become "TwitterGram-savvy" and do the "transformation", or even add the related enclosure ;-)

Re: Building TwitterGram into a really big thing! (Scripting News)

vrypan — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 20:20:10 -0000

Let's say you are not able to lobby Twitter.

Here is (crazy?) a workaround, based on client capabilities. First, you will have to generate your own "tinyurls", so that twitter is not tempted to shorten them (from what I read, you already do this). Second, your web app, should be able to respond with different data types depending on the "Accept:" field of the HTTP request.

Now, let's say twitteriffic (or any client) is "TwitterGram-savvy". Once it finds a url, instead of displaying it, it does an HTTP GET request to it, using "Accept: image/jpeg" and your server replies with an icon, a thumbnail (or whatever image you deside) that the client uses to link to the URL. This will work with other media types as well, a video icon for video links, a thumbnail of a photo, etc.

Non TwitterGram-savvy clients will keep working as usual, nothing breaks.

How about it?

Re: Building TwitterGram into a really big thing! (Scripting News)

Jauder Ho — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 20:18:05 -0000

Dave,

I think it's an interesting idea and would be interested in talking about it further. I think there is significant opportunity with all the different mediums and the different usages for different scenarios. I.e Twittergram/Utterz is great for on-the-go entry as audio input is easy. Output/playback is more complicated and requires more/different infrastructure than say Twitter. But that's okay because I'm much more likely to use Twitter when sitting in front of a computer.

OTOH if I want to put a lot of information in a short chunk, seesmic now becomes a/the desirable interface.

--Jauder

PS Not sure if you remember but I met you at the HP Garage visit..

Re: Building TwitterGram into a really big thing! (Scripting News)

obscurelyfamous — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 19:08:29 -0000

I haven't played with TwitterGram yet, but I'm a FlickrToTwitter nut. It's one of the top reasons I still Twitter at all.

Re: Building TwitterGram into a really big thing! (Scripting News)

dave — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 18:44:57 -0000

I haven't tried Utterz, I've had my attention focused elsewhere, obviously. :-)

But what really matters is what *you* think of it and TwitterGram, and where we should take it.

Last night Loic asked me why I don't bring the question to Scripting News readers, and I didn't really have a good answer, so I decided, what the heck, let's go.

Re: Building TwitterGram into a really big thing! (Scripting News)

Matt — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 18:32:34 -0000

Dave...wondering if you've checked out Utterz at all. Seems like a pretty similar thing to Twittergram, although Twittergram does provide a direct link to the MP3 file, whereas Utterz redirects you to the Utter page. I'm no programmer, so I was curious to hear your opinion of how they compare.

Re: Building TwitterGram into a really big thing! (Scripting News)

Loic — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 18:26:22 -0000

I think it's great too ;) Oh by the way Dave we are supporting the daveurl

http://www.loiclemeur.com/e...