March 2011 Summaries

The Twilio developer contest is a weekly challenge that encourages developers to try the platform for different use cases and industries. The contest has been running for over a year and offers a $250 Zappos gift certificate and $250 in cash as prizes. The contest ends on March 31st, so developers should hurry to submit their entries. Twilio provides resources such as APIs, SDKs, sample apps, and tutorials to help developers get started with the platform. The company also has a community hub where developers can share best practices, code samples, and inspiration to build communications and digital engagement experiences.

Keystone CTI was founded by Plushcap in December 2010 as a result of an idea conceived after reading about Twilio's Web 2.0 capabilities that allowed integrating phone calls with applications. The company aimed to simplify complex call tracking integrations using Twilio's service and APEX code, addressing sales and marketing pain points experienced by Salesforce users. After initial success in presenting the concept at Dreamforce and gaining feedback from colleagues, Plushcap found a developer and bootstrapped the project with savings, eventually developing a call tracking solution called Phone2Lead that integrates with Salesforce. The company's goal is to help align sales and marketing efforts using this technology.

The Twilio Developer Contest is now open, where developers can submit their best Twilio-powered business for a chance to win prizes including an Amazon Kindle 3G and $100 in Twilio credit. The contest aims to encourage developers to try Twilio for different use cases and industries, with categories announced weekly to inspire creativity. To get involved, submissions can be made through the official website, and resources such as documentation, ebooks, and webinars are available to help developers succeed with Twilio.

Shotput, an SMS newsletter product developed by a team of four from the Chicago bus in StartupBus, reached the finals at SXSW after being selected as one of the best startups among 37 other teams competing on five different buses. The team built their MVP in just two days using Ruby on Rails and hosted it on Heroku to quickly scale if needed. They used Twilio's SMS services to send newsletters and had over 100 subscribers in their first few days, with a goal of making their first sale currently underway. Despite facing challenges, the team successfully launched Shotput, a service that could have been even simpler if the idea hadn't been taken by another competitor, and are now looking forward to seeing where they take things next.

Zaarly, a location-based platform that enables people to buy and sell things based on their proximity to each other, has announced funding and plans for launch, timed to coincide with South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. The team, known for their scrappy approach, launched the service using LaunchRock, a basic landing page and started signing up users. Zaarly is positioned as a crowdsourced alternative to existing platforms like Craigslist or Kozmo.com.

This is a guest post by Derrek Wayne on how he used Twilio’s API to create CustomSongSender.com, a web application that allows users to send customized birthday and Valentine's songs to friends and family. The app uses PHP and MySQL, with the front end handling user input, the back end running cronjobs to follow up with users and deliver the song, and Twilio integration for making phone calls and sending SMS messages. Derrek borrowed design elements from AwesomenessReminders.com and used session variables in PHP to allow users to re-record their customizations. The app features eight original songs written and recorded by Derrek himself, and demonstrates how easy it is to use Twilio's API to build a feature-rich application.

Captico developed its call tracking solution using Twilio to help businesses manage their online marketing campaigns more effectively by providing insights into phone calls generated from marketing efforts, allowing clients to make informed decisions about budget allocation. The company aimed to fill the gap in existing call tracking services that were either too complex or expensive. With Call Tracking Metrics, Captico aims to expand its Internet marketing and technology business, develop new products and services, and grow its user base, with plans to further integrate Twilio's services into future product iterations.

We're excited to announce a new developer contest on our way to SXSW, where we want to see developers use Twilio for different use cases, industries, and integrations, with the goal of encouraging language-agnostic cloud communications platform adoption. To participate, submit your project by March 13th, and you could win an Amazon Kindle, $100 in Twilio credit, and a Twilio shirt and track jacket. Our ambassadors, including David Cascino from Knewton, Chad Smith from Miami, and Mark Brenneman from Cleveland, have showcased innovative projects like Conference Tag and TextMob, which demonstrate the potential of Twilio in various fields. The contest is part of our ongoing efforts to reward developers' creativity and encourage the use of Twilio for solving real-world problems.

Chad Smith and Mark Brenneman have won the Startup Bus/SXSW contest with their app "Textmob", which combines Twilio and 2D barcodes to make it easy for businesses to organize and participate in conference calls. The app was initially created as a simple RSVP webpage, but after its success, Chad decided to build a scalable version that could be used for various events and even integrated into an event planning system. He found the experience of integrating Twilio with his chosen tools and technologies to be easy, and he has also worked on other projects such as an SMS buzzer system and a smart voicemail system.

Frank Denbow won the Music Hackweek contest with his application SongVoodoo, a Twilio Shazaam app that uses search for text of lyrics as its core functionality. The app was built using PHP and integrated with APIs from 7digital and MusixMatch to provide music clips and lyric search results respectively. Frank's experience with integrating Twilio was positive, especially with the SMS functionality which he had worked with before. His project has sparked interest in understanding the lyrics space on the web and plans for expansion are underway.

The Twilio Fund has added seven new companies that utilize Twilio's API for various purposes such as automated outbound dialing, lead generation, phone tree navigation, customized voice messages, saucy text messaging, and A/B testing of marketing call scripts. These companies include FastCall411, Knockknock, Magnolia Prime, Qwipd, Volta, WorkersNow, and others that are using Twilio's API to provide innovative solutions in their respective industries.