This tutorial outlines the process of creating a real-time SMS voting application using Node.js, CouchDB, and Twilio. The author, who has experience with various programming languages but was new to Node.js and NoSQL databases like CouchDB, shares his journey as he builds the app from scratch. He starts by creating a basic Node.js application, setting up a local CouchDB database, and connecting it to Cloudant for hosting. The author then creates views to query events based on phone numbers and short names, processes incoming votes via SMS using Twilio, and sets up a utility module to store useful functions. Finally, he deploys the app to Nodejitsu and provides instructions on how to test and verify the functionality of the voting application.