July 2013 Summaries

Cloud Elements has announced the release of its Messaging Hub Platform, which simplifies the process of connecting cloud services such as SendGrid and Twilio for developers. This platform allows users to spend less time managing tools and more time building by providing a simple way to organize and integrate these services. The platform integrates SendGrid's email services with Twilio SMS, enabling developers to trigger custom notifications and monitor campaigns in real-time. With features like Git It, Track It, and Monitor It, the platform provides users with more control over their metrics and infrastructure. By leveraging Cloud Elements' Messaging Hub Platform, developers can automate tasks such as sending critical information via email and triggering SMS confirmations, while also tracking tags across multiple campaigns and monitoring notifications.

David Weekly`, a seasoned entrepreneur, shared his lessons in innovation at the recent `Twilio Tech Talks` event. He discussed various topics including raising funds for startups and drawing inspiration from 1970s counterculture, such as Haight Ashbury's influence on coders. As part of his career, David has founded several companies, including `PBWorks`, `Hacker Dojo`, and `SuperHappyDev house`. Most recently, he joined Facebook's Developer Advocate team in March of this year. The event aimed to provide insights into innovation and entrepreneurship through David's experiences and perspectives.

Twilio experienced a billing system incident on July 18, 2013, affecting approximately 1.4% of its customers in various ways, including erroneous credit card charges, account suspensions, and delayed usage reports. The root cause was identified as a misdiagnosed issue with the redis-master process, which led to extreme load, performance degradation, and timeouts from slaves to master. The incident highlighted critical flaws in Twilio's auto-recharge system and its reliance on a single Redis cluster for in-memory account balances. To prevent similar incidents, Twilio has replaced the original Redis cluster, corrected configuration errors, introduced robust fail-safes, and updated the billing system to validate against double-bookkeeping databases in real-time.

The Twilio billing system experienced an anomaly on July 18th, 2013, causing erroneous credit card charges and account suspensions for approximately 1.1% of customer accounts. The issue was resolved by the on-call team, with service restored to all affected accounts by 6:24am PDT/1:24pm GMT, although a brief re-occurrence occurred later in the day. To make up for the inconvenience, Twilio is crediting affected customers an additional 10% of their last 30 days' spend and refunding erroneous credit card transactions, as well as making those who incurred overdraft or over-limit fees whole. The company acknowledges that its response was not satisfactory and is committed to providing better quality service in the future.

Ahmond Nassri is a developer who started coding in high school out of need, quickly evolving it into a passion and profession. He had an unconventional career path, not founding a startup after college or working with a small team, but instead moving to different companies and using his mobile skills to build projects and solve problems. Ahmad currently works as UI Development Manager at CBC/Radio Canada, overseeing the website and mobile presence, and is also known for inventing Google Chrome Extension REST Console. He mentors, teaches, and attends hackathons in Toronto, Canada.

Here's a neutral and interesting summary of the text in one paragraph: Webscript.io is a service that allows developers to create simple scripts using Lua, a lightweight scripting language, to interact with the Twilio REST API and generate TwiML responses. With webscript.io, developers can easily set up new URLs and write small scripts to respond to incoming SMS messages, handle incoming phone calls, send text messages, make outgoing calls, get information from the Twilio REST API, and create capability tokens for use with Twilio Client. The service simplifies the process of building simple apps that require setting up an entire backend platform, allowing developers to focus on writing code rather than managing a software stack.

WESA and WYEP, two Pittsburgh radio stations, used Twilio to power a membership drive that overcame the limitations of their outdated analog phones. The integration was seamless, allowing volunteers to answer calls at the studio while routing overflow calls to a call center, resulting in significant cost savings for the stations. Members and callers reported a positive experience, unaware of any changes made to the phone system. The success of this campaign demonstrates the reliability of Twilio's cloud-based services, enabling WESA and WYEP to efficiently manage their main revenue stream and expand their membership acquisition efforts through SMS features.

Twilio has introduced Two-Factor Authentication as an option in its account portal to enhance security for users. This feature requires users to enter a verification code sent via SMS, in addition to their username and password, to access their account. By adding another layer of security, Twilio aims to protect sensitive information from unauthorized access. Users can choose to enable Two-Factor Authentication for all logins or only once per computer, depending on their specific security requirements.

Twilio is offering a preview of its TwilioCon 2013 workshops to a select group of NYC developers. The workshops will cover topics from beginner to advanced levels, connecting students with Twilio experts to gain hands-on experience using the platform. One workshop per day will be available, with extremely limited seats; interested developers should sign up promptly. A second workshop, `twilio::accelerate()', is designed for more experienced developers who want to accelerate their knowledge to expert level, covering topics such as building call queues and improving app performance through analytics.

Twilio's European office has been extremely busy with events and partnerships in April and May, including a three-day road trip to Paris. The company is now gearing up for the summer season with several upcoming events, including the Twilio Fund Europe program and participation at AppsWorld Europe. Additionally, they are supporting initiatives such as Young Rewired State and partnering with the 3 Beards on their Art Hack event. Twilio's team is also inviting developers to attend these events by offering free tickets and encouraging them to tweet the team if they're interested in meeting up while passing by their office in London.

Twilio created a mural of an owl, inspired by their core value "Draw the Owl," which means embracing uncertainty and innovation in office life. The owl is painted on the walls as a reminder to employees to be bold and creative. To condense the painting process into a short video, Eric Aguilar spent roughly 16 hours working on it over two minutes. Twilio encourages others to share their own owl-inspired art by emailing them at [email protected], and invites people to join their team through job postings.

When Twilio was starting in 2008, the founders met their friend and advisor Jeffrey McManus, who shared his expertise on developer platforms and evangelism. They were initially met with skepticism, but Jeffrey's guidance helped them build a strong foundation for their business. He advised them to focus on creating high-quality documentation and content, ignoring naysayers, and understanding that APIs are not the product, but rather a means of delivering it. His wisdom had a significant impact on Twilio's growth and development, and his influence can be seen in the entire industry of developer-focused companies.

Entrepreneurs are partnered with Startup Pirates and Twilio to receive resources for launching their projects, including 12 months of Zendesk access, support from Amazon Web Services, free Twilio credit, PR and conference speaking opportunities, technical support, mentoring, and more.

The DOer Express is a program that takes 11 startups from New York City to Montreal for the International Startup Festival, where they will have the opportunity to perfect their pitch, network, receive mentorship from Bessemer Venture Partners, and experience an exciting journey on a bus. The selected startups showcase passion and potential for growth, with companies such as Cheek'd, Cloudbill, and Freak'n Genius offering innovative solutions in various industries including online dating, cloud-based billing, video messaging, app development, sales tracking, webcasting, phone call management, SMS request platforms, language translation, and on-demand electricity. The DOer Express departs from NYC on July 11th and returns to Montreal on July 13th, with promotional support from Twilio, SendGrid, and Windows Azure.

Tint, a tiny startup with just four members, has quickly gained millions of users and landed prominent clients like the Dallas Cowboys and NBA.com by providing a service that displays social media feeds on websites, mobile apps, or even large screens. The company's goal is to increase fan interaction through this display, which has been shown to result in a 50% growth in interaction after adoption. Tint uses Twilio SMS for notification purposes, allowing its team to quickly identify and address any issues that may arise. With the success of its current clients, Tint is now working on expanding its services to include geo-targeted social displays for restaurants and retail companies.