November 2010 Summaries

The Twilio Developer Contest is now open until December 5th, with the winner receiving a Graphite Kindle 3G, a $50 Amazon gift card, and $100 in Twilio credit as a prize. The contest allows previous entrants to re-enter and compete again for the holiday season. Additional resources are available on Twilio's website, including API reference documentation, SDKs, sample apps, ebooks, industry reports, webinars, best practices, code samples, and inspiration for building effective communications and digital engagement experiences.

This developer contest encourages developers to try Twilio for different use cases, industries, and integrations, with a focus on holiday-inspired apps. The contest offers a $50 Amazon Gift Card, $100 in Twilio credit, and other prizes, and is open to anyone who has submitted previously and didn't win. To get involved, developers can submit their entries here, or join the Twilio forums for help and ideas. The contest runs from now until December 5th, with bonus points awarded for creating helpful materials such as screencasts and blog posts.

Twilio has reduced its SMS price to $0.02 per message as part of its ongoing effort to pass on savings to customers by reaching greater economies of scale. This price reduction follows previous announcements of lower prices for Twilio Voice API minutes and phone numbers, further demonstrating the company's commitment to affordability and innovation in communication services. With its SMS API, Twilio enables developers to programmatically send and receive text messages, making it an essential tool for a wide range of use cases, from social media startups to healthcare research studies and more. As part of this initiative, Twilio is also introducing SMS short codes with superior service and straightforward terms, offering early access to its developer community.

UberCmd is a command line tool for managing cloud services, offering an app store and integration possibilities with various cloud services, according to its creator Colin Young, who was excited about the project's potential. NomSum.com is a hyper-local search site that allows users to search menus instead of restaurants, providing a useful service for frequent travelers like the author. Ready Jane is a subscription-based platform for personal care products targeted at women, but also offers a potentially profitable platform for others to set up subscription services for physical products. The author enjoyed judging the startups and working with other panel members, finding them smart and passionate about helping entrepreneurs. The event concluded with an inspiring note on the potential of entrepreneurship, leaving the teams from the weekend with a great start to Global Entrepreneurship Week.

Super Startup Weekend Part 3: Indianapolis Raises the Bar for All Startup Weekends` The event was impeccably organized with flawless wi-fi, setting a high standard for future events. Most teams were still present when the author arrived, and they spent Sunday finalizing their demos and preparing presentations. The atmosphere shifted to "crunch time" as the deadline approached, but despite the chaos, teams remained gracious and open about their projects. Notably, a 9-year-old entrepreneur named Daniel pitched his idea, demonstrating that there are no excuses for not taking risks. The event's organization, venue, and overall experience were all top-notch, leaving a lasting impression on the author, who looks forward to attending another Startup Weekend in the future.

The Super Startup Weekend in Cleveland saw five teams come together to develop innovative ideas, with GovGame aiming to create a platform for tracking politicians' actions, DreamKumo seeking to connect people with shared goals and companies willing to help them achieve those goals, HallRenter.com looking to simplify the process of renting event space, QloudSitter providing a service to track infant care via phone and SMS. The teams demonstrated originality and passion for their startups, despite being a relatively small group.

I embarked on a "Super Startup Weekend" tour to visit Detroit, Cleveland, Indianapolis, and Chicago Startup Weeks, hosted by Twilio. In Detroit, I found excitement among attendees at TechTown, where the event was being held, and witnessed intense conversations with innovators like an aerospace engineer with an idea for fixing power grid fluctuations. Although I had to leave early, I'll share a recap of the teams formed on the Detroit Startup Weekend site before heading to Cleveland.

Playdate is a project built on various technologies including Kynetx and Twilio. The founder, Julian Gay, was inspired by his experience at the Kynetx Dev Day in Mountain View to create an event-driven process that integrates user-managed group messaging into a single SMS message. He used the Kynetx AppBuilder to develop the application and integrated Twilio's service to send SMS messages to contacts. The integration with Twilio was found to be easy, leveraging the existing integration between Kynetx and Twilio. Julian started developing with Twilio after completing the basic tutorial on the Twilio site. He used this platform to solve his problem of coordinating groups of people, particularly his parents/kids group.

The Twilio Developer Contest is a weekly contest where developers are encouraged to try Twilio for different use cases, industries, and integrations. The contest aims to showcase the versatility of Twilio as a language-agnostic platform for cloud communications. Developers can submit their Python-powered Twilio apps by November 14th to be eligible to win a Graphite Amazon Kindle 3G, a $50 O'Reilly Gift Card, and $100 in Twilio credit. The contest is open to anyone who has submitted previously and did not win, making it an opportunity for developers to resubmit their apps for another chance at winning.

Apigee Launches Twilio API Console` Apigee has developed a demo showcasing the features of the Twilio API Console, which includes a 'Share' button for easy troubleshooting, syntax highlighting, and a URL builder. The console is also complemented by Apigee's API Debugger, a powerful tool that displays requests and responses in real-time, allowing developers to troubleshoot APIs and TwiML requests without disrupting normal API calls. This resource makes it easier for developers to browse, play with, and debug APIs, providing a great starting point for learning about APIs or improving existing knowledge.

We've Raised $12M Series B with Bessemer, USV, and 500 Startups` The company Twilio has raised $12 million in its Series B funding round, led by investors Bessemer, USV, and 500 Startups. The funds will be used to scale the business and improve support for developers who use the Twilio platform. The platform provides a powerful telephony API that enables users to make calls from web applications. With over 20,000 developers building on top of its APIs, Twilio is grateful for the contributions of its community and is now hiring for new roles. The company's mission is to shake up the world of communications, and it plans to continue innovating with the support of its investors.

To participate in the contest, Python developers can check out the Twilio app gallery for inspiration or use their existing knowledge of Python to create a project with Twilio's API. The winner will receive a Graphite Amazon Kindle 3G, a $50 O'Reilly Gift Card, and $100 in Twilio credit. To learn more about Twilio's offerings and resources, developers can visit the company's documentation and resource center, which includes API reference documentation, SDKs, helper libraries, quickstarts, tutorials, and industry reports. The contest ends on November 14th at 11:59pm PT.

Twilio is proud to be a partner at Cloudstock 2010, a FREE event focused on developers leveraging the cloud. The event features talks from Twilio's team, including insights into pricing SaaS offerings and using Twilio APIs for making phone calls and text messages. Additionally, there will be hands-on coding sessions and discussions with industry experts.

Order Mapper was founded by Jim Bricker in 2008 after he developed an iPhone app called "21 Golf Tips" to improve his golf game, which led him to create Order Pizza, a mobile ordering app that uses Twilio's API. The app gained popularity and eventually expanded to include branded apps for pizzeria chains and other businesses, with over 150,000 downloads. Bricker has praised Twilio as a powerful and easy-to-use API, and the company is now working on integrating PayPal's mobile payment solutions into its platform. With the help of investors and partnerships, Order Mapper aims to continue growing and expanding its services.

The Twilio Developer Contest is an ongoing competition where developers can submit their apps built on the Kynetx platform, a unique platform for building apps that can interface with users on any URL or web-enabled device. The contest aims to encourage developers from all backgrounds to try Twilio for different use cases, industries, and integrations. To participate, developers can submit their apps by November 7th, at 11:59pm Pacific Time, and can receive a 16GB Wifi iPad and $100 in Twilio credit as a prize. The contest is open to anyone who has previously submitted an app but didn't win, allowing them to resubmit with improved versions of their work.

This collaboration between Twilio and Kynetx has resulted in an innovative app that enables users to create instant auctions using the event-driven web and cloud communications. The app utilizes Google Spreadsheets as a database, Twitter for promotion, and integrates with both APIs to execute rulesets and send notifications. By following Sam Curren's example, developers can build their own Twilio + Kynetx apps, which may be submitted by this Sunday at 11:59pm PST for a chance to win an iPad. The Kynetx Developer Day event on November 5th provides further opportunities for developers to learn about the capabilities of these APIs and how they can be used to create innovative applications.

The Format Phone Number API is a simple REST API that formats phone numbers for display or dialing purposes, taking into account the country of origin, and can be easily integrated with Twilio apps without requiring a signup. Developed by Mazie Software while building a meeting manager web app called Hermes, which uses Twilio's audio conferencing functionality, the API is now being made publicly available to other Twilio developers for free use.