November 2012 Summaries

Charlton Roberts, a developer for Order Mapper, has been using Twilio since August 2009, initially to develop the Need Mapper system after Hurricane Sandy. He has built several projects with Twilio, including an interactive text system and modules to improve customer relationships. Order Mapper uses Twilio to connect users with pizzerias in the US through its app, providing over 1/3 of all pizzerias with interactive calls. Charlton's motivation for building Need Mapper was to help his friends in New York affected by Hurricane Sandy, using a system that could interact with victims and provide updates on their needs. He has since built other projects, including an Order Beer app, and is launching a new HTML5 version of the Order Pizza mobile app soon. Charlton's experience with Twilio has allowed him to build powerful automated communication systems, and he continues to use Twilio in his work with Order Mapper.

BuildingLink successfully sent thousands of SMS evacuation notifications to residents in 130 properties during Hurricane Sandy using Twilio's SMS service, scaling their platform from normal traffic to handle the sudden increase in demand. The team worked efficiently with Twilio's API and support to deliver timely updates on building status and power outages throughout the storm. Despite the challenges, Jerry Kesterbaum, founder of BuildingLink, remained calm and experienced, having gone through a similar situation before with Twilio, and was already looking forward to the next storm.

Steve Blank at TwilioCon 2012: Steve Blank shared his insights on building a great company step by step, aiming to fail less, and providing a clear roadmap for entrepreneurs. He drew upon his experience as the author of The Startup Owner's Manual and 12 Steps to the Epiphany. Alexis Finch captured his keynote presentation in a visually engaging sketchnote, breaking down complex concepts into memorable and easy-to-understand metaphors and humor.

The article is written by Matt Auerbach, a Twilio intern alumna who shares his experience of overcoming the challenges of shopping for furniture at IKEA. He recounts how he had to navigate through the maze-like store using only a shopping card and a golf pencil, but eventually used his knowledge of web scraping and Twilio SMS to create an app that allows users to search for products by article number and receive their location. The app uses Mechanize and Beautiful Soup to scrape product information from IKEA's website and dispatches text messages via Twilio SMS with the user's desired item. Matt reflects on how this project improved his experience at IKEA and hopes it can be implemented in IKEA stores to enhance customer shopping experiences.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Isaac, two developers, Oliver Blank and Earl Carlson, collaborated to create 60 Second Scoop, a service that provides critical information to residents via phone calls. The solution leverages Twilio Voice technology, allowing users to access emergency updates, Twitter feeds, and other pertinent information in just 60 seconds. By utilizing home phone lines and cell phones as a common denominator, the team aimed to make information more inclusive and accessible to those affected by the disaster. Their goal is now to expand 60 Second Scoop to cities across the U.S., partnering with organizations like Neighborland to facilitate community engagement and support.

ESPN held their first public hackathon, which brought together over 100 female developers and designers from the Stanford design school to create apps combining sports and tech. A trio of female CMU grad students took home the grand prize with their app iSports, a web app that scans athletes' faces and pulls up key facts and context about each player, using machine learning and facial recognition technology. The winning teams featured current Hackbright Academy students or recent alumni, including Does Parking Suck, The Pack is Here (Twilio prize winner), and Strength is Beautiful (YouTube prize winner). The event was well-received and showcased the potential for collaboration between sports and tech industries, with plans already underway for future events.

This article discusses the importance of mobile app distribution in increasing downloads and user engagement. It highlights the benefits of using SMS-based mobile app distribution, including improved conversion rates, ability to track statistics, and providing an alternative call-to-action for users who are reluctant to share their phone number. The article also provides a step-by-step guide on how to implement mobile app distribution via SMS using Twilio, a cloud communication platform.

Agnes Chavez is a multi-disciplinary artist exploring data visualization and video mapping through her project (x)Tree, which uses algorithms to create a tree-like image from Twitter, SMS messages, and added phrases on the topic of saving trees. The interactive exhibit allows users to send SMS and alter the shape and growth of the tree, promoting inclusivity and participation. With Twilio's SMS functionality, Agnes aims to engage people worldwide in the project, leaving a lasting impression with its purpose-driven art.

The CascadiaJS conference was organized by Carter M Rabasa in 2012 with the goal of bringing together developers from the Pacific Northwest for a two-day event featuring talks and fun activities. The conference was community-driven, staffed by volunteers, and had a strong focus on content, internet connectivity, and coffee. To create an engaging experience, speakers were carefully selected through an open call, and various perks such as catered lunch, customized hoodies, parties, and a private screening of the movie 007 Skyfall were offered to attendees. The conference was live streamed and all talks were recorded and posted online for those who couldn't attend. Carter M Rabasa shares lessons learned from organizing the event, including the importance of believing in the success of the conference, getting key elements right, and creating an experience that fosters connections among attendees.

You Need My Guy is a social hiring site that aims to help users tap into their multiple social networks when searching for new business partners, leveraging word of mouth by organizing it in a platform. The site was founded after its creator, Joe, received investment and saw the potential for a platform that allows service providers to promote their businesses on various social networks while also utilizing connections to make new deals. The platform has already seen success with one beta tester landing a contract based on a Facebook connection within the first week of launch. To grow, the site is building its team, working on security features, and partnering with chambers of commerce to onboard member communities.

CU Wireless, a subsidiary of Maps Credit Union, aimed to enhance its technology services and financial apps by rolling out mobile banking with secure and scalable SMS service. The company partnered with Twilio's cloud communications platform after evaluating various options. Twilio provided CU Wireless with a modern API, making it easier for the team to build new products and add features to existing ones. The partnership resulted in cost savings of almost 50% on text messaging costs and 33% on short code costs. Additionally, the mobile banking app provides a convenient way for members to access their accounts on the go, with features such as balance checks, transaction updates, and proactive notifications. CU Wireless is heavily invested in customer experience, and Twilio's platform has helped them achieve this goal by providing reliable, speedy, and accurate mobile services.

We at CloudSquads partnered with Twilio and Salesforce to create a seamless calling and transcription experience within the Salesforce interface, eliminating dropped calls, missed notes, and CRM updates for sales professionals, allowing them to focus on customer engagement and relationship building. The integration utilizes Twilio's APIs and Salesforce's industry-leading Sales Cloud application, providing features such as call tracking, recording, inbound and outbound calling, and automatic transcription, all within the Salesforce instance.

This paragraph provides a summary of the Return2Me app, which is a customer support follow-up system that uses dynamic extensions to connect customers with their representatives. The app allows customers to dial a unique extension number to be connected directly with their representative, without exposing the actual direct line for the rep. The system uses Twilio's SMS API and IVR capabilities to send text messages and prompts users to enter an extension number. Once a valid extension is entered, the customer is connected with their representative. The app also stores extensions in a servlet context to keep the hack simple. Chris Foster, the developer behind Return2Me, shares his experience and knowledge on building dynamic extensions for customer support using Twilio's API.

BookingBug, a service business scheduling platform, partnered with Twilio to enhance its SMS functionality from one-way to two-way communication, allowing clients to cancel or reschedule appointments by text message, reducing no-shows and administrative work. This upgrade resulted in an 80% savings for BookingBug, as well as the ability to offer bulk SMS marketing campaigns, providing small businesses with a competitive edge against larger companies. With Twilio's reliable and scalable infrastructure, BookingBug is confident in its ability to support international growth and expand its user base.

This article explores how a customer service team can use JIRA, GreenHopper, Zapier, and Twilio SMS to notify customers when their service request needs attention, enabling faster resolution and increasing customer satisfaction by providing instant gratification through timely updates via SMS. The process involves setting up webhooks in JIRA with Twilio SMS, integrating with a third-party SMS service to send notifications, and using Zapier to automate the sharing of information between applications. By following these steps, teams can enhance their workflow, improve communication with customers, and ultimately resolve requests faster.

The author of the text, a software engineer at Twilio, shares their experience with Unicode SMS encoding and its implications for sending international messages. They discuss the limitations of traditional ASCII character encoding in GSM networks, which can only handle 140 bytes of data, and how this affects the transmission of characters like emojis. The author then describes their project, ChesSMS, a chess game played entirely over SMS using Unicode characters, which they implemented using Erlang/OTP. They detail the challenges of rendering a chessboard on different devices with varying fonts and the creative solutions they found to overcome these issues. The text concludes with the author's positive experience with Erlang for building SMS applications on Twilio and invites readers to play ChesSMS by texting "PLAY" to a specific phone number or fork their source code on GitHub.

This article discusses how to develop Twilio apps using ASP.NET MVC 4 Web API, focusing on leveraging the new WebApi features for building REST-like APIs that integrate with Twilio's Platform. The author provides a step-by-step guide on setting up the infrastructure for WebApi, adding UriPathExtensionMappings for XML and JSON formats, and creating a fictitious example of a Weather WebApi controller using the TwilioResponse object to serialize and send back XML payloads to Twilio. The article also covers testing locally with Curl utility and cross-referencing with Twilio's TwiML documentation, as well as exploring the use of Windows Azure Service Bus for relaying features in local development environments.

The Twilio Cloud Module is a JavaScript library that makes it easy to use Twilio for mobile app development, allowing developers to integrate Twilio features into their Parse apps with ease. The tutorial demonstrates how to send SMS using the Twilio Cloud Module and Parse Cloud Code function, making it simple to add secure communication functionality to mobile apps without needing servers. The example app uses a native iOS application written in Objective-C, which presents a table view of friends and allows users to make calls to their friends via SMS, demonstrating the flexibility of integrating Twilio with Parse for mobile app development.

Mef (Managed Extensibility Framework) is being used in this ASP.NET MVC 4 application to add dependency injection for the TwilioRestClient class. The MefMvcConfig class registers Mef in the Application_Start method, and the MefMvcControllerFactory class is used to scan the CompositionContainer when resolving Controller types. The HomeController class is decorated with the [Export] attribute, which enables Mef to export its instances for injection. The Register action in the AccountController uses ServiceLocator to resolve the dependency on TwilioRestClient, allowing it to be injected and activated by Mef. A custom adapter class, TwilioRestClientMefAdapter, is created to wrap the TwilioRestClient class and provide a parameterless constructor, which is required for Mef's CompositionContainer to work. The ServiceLocator currently instance property is used to get an instance of the TwilioRestClient from the CompositionContainer.

Twilio has secured eLynx Securites as a customer by providing them with a reliable SMS platform that can handle the high volume of messages required for their oil and gas industry application. The integration was completed quickly, within the same day, thanks to Twilio's simple and self-service API. This allows eLynx to provide real-time data collection and production monitoring to their customers, enabling them to act on information rather than collecting it, resulting in less downtime and increased production. Twilio also offered cost savings compared to its competitors, with pricing that was half of what they had quoted. Additionally, the platform supports customization of voice and SMS messages, allowing eLynx to offer tailored choices to their customers.

Developers Spring to Action with #Sandy Relief: Apps and Resources` Many developers are taking action to help those affected by Hurricane Sandy, creating a range of apps and resources to assist in the relief efforts, including Twilio's team helping redirect downed communications, Mobile Commons providing polling place information, and Need Mapper locating volunteers. Developers have also built various tools such as 60 Second Scoop for news updates and Hurricane Hackers' real-time maps tracking Sandy's wind patterns and water levels. Additionally, Alastair Coote created a transit tracker to help navigate public transportation in New York City. The efforts of the developer community are greatly appreciated during this time of need.

To get out and vote, several apps are available to help, including the DNC National Voter Protection Hotline, which allows users to report voter fraud in real-time, Cost of Freedom, which provides access to state's Voter ID laws and requirements, and TurboVote, an app that helps users register to vote, vote by mail, and answers questions about voting. These apps aim to increase voter participation and provide support for those who may have questions or concerns about the voting process.

Fancy Hands is a platform that provides personal assistants for individuals, allowing them to outsource tasks such as booking hotels or grabbing last-minute groceries without the hassle of hiring a full-time assistant. The service uses Twilio to facilitate communication between users and their assigned assistants, enabling features like scheduling updates, conference calls, and call recordings. By leveraging this technology, Fancy Hands aims to expand its mobile availability and form new partnerships with companies that can enhance the personal assistant experience.

HipDial has introduced tiered pricing for small businesses and enterprise companies, as well as new security features such as the ability to "lock" conference lines. The service allows users to send a dedicated phone number to coworkers joining a conference call, eliminating the need for pin codes or pound signs. HipDial also sends text message alerts when the host is running late. Recently, the team has been working on adding new features, including slide sharing during conference calls.