October 2010 Summaries

Happy Halloween! Noel Portugal Builds Automatic Halloween Candy Dispenser Using Twilio` Noel Portugal built an automatic candy dispenser for Halloween using a bucket, Arduino, X10 goodies, and Twilio to control it via phone or SMS. The project uses a how-to guide on Instructables and has additional information on Noel's blog about other projects. A video shows the machine in action, showcasing its functionality.

TextSlide has launched a chatroulette-style anonymous text messaging service called Chatroulette for Text Messaging, powered by Twilio. The service started out as a weekend project by Matt Hunter and is currently giving out limited beta invitations to users who can sign up at TextSlide.com. The goal of the service is to provide an alternative to traditional texting services that charge fees, with Hunter planning to seek funding to expand into mobile app experiences.

Cuevox has won the Twilio "Anything Goes, With a Twist!" Developer Contest and was built using Common Lisp as the programming language. The project's inspiration came from the creator's desire to create a startup with limited capital and resources, focusing on face-to-face communication and value that could be immediately seen. The development process started smoothly but hit a roadblock when trying to make phone calls due to Twilio being case sensitive to attribute names. Cuevox is currently in final beta, with payment processing finalized, and the creator is engaging with potential clients to build momentum around the idea.

The Twilio + Union Square Ventures Developer Contest has announced its top finalists, each of which has won $250 in Twilio credit to help get their businesses off the ground. AdCommittee provides local call tracking phone numbers for businesses, allowing them to track and manage their advertising campaigns more effectively. Diner Connection offers a customer management solution with minimal startup costs, affordable monthly subscription fees, and eliminates the need for expensive proprietary hardware. Main Street establishes a basic web presence for main street businesses in just 60 seconds, automatically pulling in conversations and reviews from social media sites. Voicendo enables businesses to configure their phone numbers in a hosted environment, providing features such as call scheduling, SMS notifications, and custom menus. Finally, Weeels is an interface that augments existing vehicles into functional transit systems by coordinating cab rides among passengers with complementary itineraries via smartphone and SMS applications.

The API Hackday at Twilio HQ is underway, featuring a collaboration between SimpleGeo, Heroku, Mashery, Apigee, SendGrid, Amazon Web Services, and Media Temple as sponsors, with the Zappos API team and Kynetx team in attendance. The event offers an opportunity for participants to work on their projects, with presentations starting at 6:30pm and demos from all teams to be showcased before a deadline of 6pm. The event also features a resource center with documentation, ebooks, industry reports, and webinars, as well as Twilio's developer community hub for best practices, code samples, and inspiration.

The Twilio Developer Contest is an ongoing initiative that encourages developers to try Twilio for various use cases, industries, and integrations. The contest offers a $100 prize in Twilio credit and a $250 Amazon gift card, as well as a $200 Visa gift card courtesy of PayPalX. Developers can submit their projects by October 31st, and those who have previously submitted but didn't win are eligible to resubmit with improved entries. The contest aims to promote language-agnostic cloud communications and provide resources such as Twilio Docs, the Resource Center, and the Ahoy community hub to support developers in building successful apps and experiences.

Frank has won a $250 Amazon gift card and $100 in Twilio credit for his inventive use of the Twilio API in the Play contest category at Twilio, with his app SingSend using PHP as its foundation. Frank's inspiration to build SingSend came from an award-winning NYC Startup Weekend karaoke project where he received a MMS message with someone singing on their phone. The experience of integrating Twilio was found to be super easy for Frank, who got started developing with Twilio after seeing John Britton demo around NYC.

In a recent video demo, Michael Yap combined Twilio with Joget, a business process tool, to create an engaging application that enables users to access full telephony services through a simple drag-and-drop interface. The motivation behind this project was the usefulness of Twilio plugins in expanding the capabilities of Joget applications. As for future plans, the publicly available plugins will be made widely accessible for day-to-day business use. For fellow developers starting out with Twilio, Michael advises to watch their cases and take advantage of quick responses from the support team. The demo showcases the potential of combining these technologies to create innovative communication experiences.

WeAreSafeAndSound.com is a 100% free service that connects people in emergency situations through a centralized voicemail system, privately funded by Ladder Jumpers, LLC and advertising partners. The site has over 4400 registrants and allows users to leave "Safe&Sound" messages for loved ones during natural disasters, which can be accessed via toll-free numbers or email/text notifications after proper identification is provided, utilizing Twilio's centralized voice messaging system built with PHP.

John Britton will present OpenVBX, an open source virtual phone system, at the New York Tech Meetup, where he will demonstrate how setting up a simple virtual phone system is accessible to anyone who can download and install it on their server. The presentation is scheduled for 8pm Eastern time and will be live streamed. John Britton previously gave a live coding demo of the Twilio API at another event, showcasing his experience with developer tools.

Twilio is hosting a developer contest where participants can submit their apps built using various programming languages, including some less commonly used ones. The winner will receive $100 in Twilio credit and a $250 Amazon gift card, with bonus points awarded for creating helpful materials to demonstrate the value of the app. This is the 12th round of the contest, which aims to encourage developers from all backgrounds to try Twilio for different use cases and integrations. Submissions are due by October 17th and can be submitted online, with previous non-winners eligible to resubmit. The contest encourages creativity and experimentation with Twilio's cloud communications platform.

The event recap highlights the recent travel of the author to Kansas City for a Startup Weekend organizer's summit and Los Angeles for Startup Camp 2 - Communications Edition. The events provided opportunities for networking with entrepreneurs, customers, and developers, as well as sharing knowledge on the future of VoIP and cloud communications in industry topics. The author also participated in panels discussing the impact of cloud communications on enterprises and spoke at a local tech event where Mark Suster shared insights on fostering growth and innovation in Los Angeles. Additionally, the events showcased various startups, including Twilio-powered companies like GroupMe, which presented their group text messaging application.

You can now take advantage of a $200 Twilio credit bonus redeemable when upgrading your trial account or adding funds to an existing paid account with a promo code from AppSumo, valid for both new and existing customers. The promo is available in the AppSumo dashboard, where you'll also find information on how to redeem it. Additionally, 99designs has added a deal to the bundle, offering a free power pack upgrade when starting a contest. This offer is part of the Lean Startup Bundle, which includes various resources and tools from Twilio and other companies. The Twilio AppSumo deal has now sold out, but you can still take advantage of the 99designs offer.