Django is a popular Python web framework used for building web applications, and it's often referred to as "batteries included" due to the many features that come with it out-of-the-box. In this article, Paul Hallett builds a simple SMS message application using Django and Twilio, a cloud communication platform. The goal is to link a Twilio phone number to a Django web application, respond to an SMS message with some basic TwiML, and use twilio-python to build responses pythonically. The author uses Django-twilio, a collection of decorators for views that return TwiML or receive information from Twilio, to make the code cleaner and more secure. The article covers topics such as CSRF exemption, Twilio-specific secure solutions, and discovering Twilio content in the request. Ultimately, the author demonstrates how to build complex systems that leverage the telephony system using Django and Twilio.