October 2013 Summaries

Surf's Up: Get Surfing Forecasts via SMS by Brian Cope and Andrew Jordan at Twilio HQ in San Francisco, where the duo built an app to provide surfers with timely and accurate forecasts via SMS using Spitcast's API, allowing users to receive beach-specific updates by texting "spots" or a specific beach number to 617-3-SWELLS.

This tutorial guides developers through building a screen pop application using Twilio Client and FullContact API. The application allows users to input their name, which is then used to look up caller information using the FullContact API. When an incoming call is received, the application displays the caller's details to the user, who can accept or reject the call. The tutorial covers setting up a Node.js application with Twilio Client and FullContact API integration, creating views for the index and client pages, handling incoming calls, and configuring environment variables and TwiML app settings. Once completed, the application allows users to receive calls from a dedicated phone number and view caller information in real-time.

When Apple announced the iPhone 5C, some people stood in line for over a week, while others hired people to stand in line for them. A developer, Cemre Gungor, built an app using Twilio that checks with Apple's inventory cache and alerts him via SMS when iPhone 5C's are in stock, securing his friend Brandon the sought-after golden iPhone. Cemre was frustrated with constantly checking Apple's website and calling in to check on availability, and wanted a solution that would automatically refresh the inventory for him. He found it easy to build the app using Twilio, which provided helpful documentation and one-line setup. The app has garnered around 600 views and 30 tweets since its release, and Cemre prefers the phone call notification over email or push notifications due to its disruptiveness.

The TwilioCon 2013 event featured a wide range of topics including interstellar space travel, new Twilio Picture Messaging and the future of communication. The conference provided an opportunity for attendees to learn from industry experts such as Jeff Lawson and Tim O'Reilly. A collection of videos from the event is now available online, allowing viewers to relive the experience or catch talks that they may have missed.

Twilio recognized several individuals at TwilioCon and TwilioCon Europe as "DOers" who are using communication technologies to make a positive impact. These individuals, including Roger Stringer, Aaron Foss, Courtney Powell, Daniel Yu, William Meyer, Robin Bigio, Molly Norris, John Won, Nicolas Pottier, Eric Newcomer, Brandon Stafford, Sam Hill, Tom Armitage, Gyorgyi Galik, Emily Schiffer, Tim Rogers, Zac Witte, Rose Broome, Michael Fitzgerald, Ross Penman, and Max Little, are using Twilio to build innovative projects that have the potential to change lives for the better. Their work includes building apps to fight robocalling, tracking medicine shipments, teaching resource management through art, and making inanimate objects interactive with text messages.

The author, Jarod Reyes, created an interactive haunted house using Arduino and Twilio to build an interactive experience for trick-or-treaters. The system consists of pumpkins that change colors when texted a specific color or "chaos" via a mobile app. The project uses a circuit built with Arduino, LEDs, and power components, as well as a Sinatra app hosted on Heroku. The app receives incoming SMS messages through Twilio and triggers Pusher events to the Arduino, which changes the LED colors accordingly. The system aims to create a memorable experience for trick-or-treaters and their parents, while also showcasing the capabilities of Twilio and Pusher in interactive applications.

Dial-a-cat is a project that allows users to send and receive pictures of cats using the Martin M2 SSTV transmission method over the telephone. The project uses Twilio for its Interactive Voice Response (IVR) functionality, Python, Flask, pySSTV, and the Cat API. It generates pre-rendered SSTV transmissions from images stored on a server, as well as streaming live SSTV transmissions of random internet images. Users can press buttons such as "0" to get help or "8" to receive a new image. The project is built using Twilio's TwiML tag and uses the pySSTV library to handle the SSTV transmission. It was created by Joel Franusic, who was inspired by an art installation that used SSTV transmissions and wanted to create something similar but with a more user-friendly interface.

The founders of GoCardless built a college project into a thriving business, offering a direct debit platform to UK SMEs that ensures timely payments and easy customer communication, backed by Twilio-powered communications and support. The company aims to expand its services to the European Union market at the start of next year, leveraging the existing UK system as a basis for rollout across the Euro Zone.

Thorn Tech, a company founded by NASCAR driver Jeff Thorn, partnered with Sprint to market their app "DriveFirst" using Twilio. The goal was to reduce texting and driving while generating new customer leads for Sprint. Using Twilio, they created an auto-response system that handled over 6,000 incoming calls and SMS messages, making it easy to contact potential customers. This solution allowed fans of NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. to receive a personalized message from him, promoting the DriveFirst app and encouraging them to sign up for Sprint. The partnership resulted in significantly boosting downloads of the app and demonstrating the effectiveness of Twilio's services in solving complex marketing challenges.

HAProxy is a crucial component of Twilio's infrastructure, used extensively for traffic management and reliability. The configuration file showcases various settings such as logging, timeout values, retries, and health checks to ensure optimal performance and stability. By enabling features like HTTP server close, client timeouts, and connect timeouts, HAProxy can handle high volumes of traffic while preventing issues with keep-alive requests. The use of redispatch and httpchk options provides an additional layer of protection against failed connections, ensuring that only healthy hosts receive traffic. Understanding these settings is crucial for optimizing HAProxy performance and reliability, making it a valuable resource for developers and system administrators.

ngrok is a free tool that enables developers to expose their local web applications on localhost to the internet, allowing them to test and develop webhooks with services like Twilio. To use ngrok for local Twilio development, one needs to download it, write a simple web application that responds to inbound calls or texts in TwiML format, start ngrok to expose the local web app's port to the public internet, and configure Twilio to hit this URL when an incoming call or text is received. With ngrok, developers can easily test and develop their Twilio applications locally without relying on cloud-based services.

Context.IO and Twilio have partnered to create an intelligent inbox system that can filter out irrelevant information and deliver important messages to users. By using Context.IO's API, developers can create webhooks that trigger events as they occur within their email inbox. With the help of Twilio, these webhooks can be used to send text or voice notifications, allowing users to receive important messages in a timely manner. The system can also be used to manipulate and delete messages, with the option to add functionality such as filtering out messages from certain addresses or only those with specific attachments. By combining Context.IO's API with Twilio's services, developers can create a scalable and powerful solution for managing email inboxes.

Twilio Fund Europe Winner, OnePageCRM: Breathing Life Into The Customer Database`, is the name of a company that has been selected as the winner of Twilio Fund Europe, an initiative by Twilio to support European companies using its communication platform. OnePageCRM's CEO Michael Fitzgerald aims to create a one-stop-shop for customers' needs, with a focus on day-to-day sales actions and micro-actions, rather than traditional CRM features like vast database systems. The company is building a new in-app call function powered by Twilio, which will be integrated into their existing CRM platform, allowing users to make calls directly within the app without leaving it. Additionally, OnePageCRM plans to offer billing services, with a 30-day trial period for customers, and has iterated on its product quickly through user feedback and testing.

Jarod Reyes, a developer, shares his experience finding his tribe through hackathons, where he met fellow hackers who transformed his ideas into reality. He reflects on the transformative power of the hacker community, which teaches individuals to think like hackers and challenge traditional approaches. As Jarod joins Twilio as Technical Content Producer, he aims to breathe new life into technical content by infusing modern technologies with old traditions, seeking input from fellow wizards in the developer community.

The author Michael Wawra created an application that allows random strangers on the internet to change the color of his Philips Hue light bulbs by sending an SMS message. The application uses Twilio's SMS service and Sinatra, a Ruby web framework, to interact with the Philips Hue API. The application requires a Philips Hue base station, an Ethernet connection, and an IP address to function. To send data to the Philips Hue API, the application sends HTTP PUT requests with JSON data that includes hue, saturation, and brightness values. These values are used to set specific colors for the light bulbs. The application uses Twilio's SMS service to receive messages from users and pass the color value as JSON to the Philips Hue API. Once the code is running on a routable network, users can send an SMS message with a specific hue value to change the color of the light bulb.

Twilio and Parse have collaborated to create a new, full-fledged Twilio helper library for Parse Cloud Code, which allows developers to focus on what makes their app unique. The latest version of the Cloud Code module brings all the power of the Twilio platform, including TwiML, VoIP, and the entire REST API, making it possible to build full-featured communications applications in the cloud with no server configuration or management required. The library is 100% backward compatible with the older version of the Cloud Code module, and a quick tutorial using the Parse JavaScript SDK along with Cloud Code is provided to help developers get started. With this collaboration, developers can now easily integrate Twilio's communication services into their Parse apps, making it possible to build native mobile apps with VoIP functionality.

TwilioCon was a successful event where attendees were building various projects with Twilio, including improving customer experience and empowering people in developing countries. The conference featured activities such as the Hacker Olympics, which included playing Bomberman and hacking songs as code. Additionally, it marked the first time TwilioCon came to Europe, with an upcoming event scheduled for October 21st.

Twilio’s RubyGem made integrating the app with Twilio very easy, allowing Ross to send an SMS in just two lines of code. The app was built using Ruby on Rails and Bootstrap, deploying on Heroku, and quickly became a hit, with over 750 developers signing up within 24 hours. Ross attributes his success to Twilio's ease of use and the fact that it allowed him to focus on building the service without worrying about complex technical issues. The app was well-received by users, who appreciated its instant notifications via SMS, and Ross has expressed gratitude for Twilio's support and engagement with young developers like himself.