Twilio Cloud Communications - Discover Our Web Services API for Making & Receiving Phone Calls & Text Messages, Cloud Telephony

Participate in Our Mini Contest This Week - Make a Screencast

It took a little while for us to announce the contest winners from last week's Twilio + Twitter mashup challenge.  So this week, instead of picking a category of applications and leaving you with just over 72 hours to write up the code, we're giving this week's contest a twist.

If you've been reading our blog and surfing our website, you might have noticed that we're hard at work producing screencasts and videos as another way to explain new Twilio features and demonstrate applications.  But why should we have all the fun?

Make a Video - Win a Flipcam and Screenflow

So now it's your turn.  You have until 11:59pm this Sunday, January 31st, to submit your video demonstrating how to build a Twilio app.  The only rules are that it must be uploaded on a publicly accessible website, and it must be no longer than 3 minutes.

Tips for a Good Screencast

I recently gave a 5 minute Ignite talk at Wordcamp Boston about the art of making great screencasts.  If you want to watch the video, it is embedded below, but here are the main points:

• pick a topic that can fit in 3 minutes
• draw a storyboard
• do a dry run
• go for continuous takes that don't require editing
• add voice overs
• distribute online for free (YouTube, Vimeo, etc.)

TWO Winners for Last Week's Twilio + Twitter Mashup Contest

Update: You might have noticed we haven't announced a contest category for this week yet... stay tuned, we are going to have a "mini category" for now through Sunday.

For the past two weeks, we've challenged Twilio developers to mash up Twilio and Twitter to see how people will combine the real-time web and cloud communications.  Last week, the prize went to Wayne Dyck at the Washington State Department of Transportation for their Twitter direct message service which makes called to Twitter users with ferry and border crossing wait times.

As so often happens, we get many impressive submissions for our weekly developer contest an as the user base for Twilio continues to grow so does the breadth of ideas. When we see more than one application that is so good we can't talk about anything else to stop trying to convince the others it should win, then we give two prizes.  And that's what happened this week.  Without further ado, here are the TWO winners of last week's Twilio and Twitter mashup contest.

Group Call by Tim Lytle

GroupCall allows twitter users to host and manage a group conference call with a few simple clicks. Designed for group instruction, where one user speaks and the audience comments/participates via twitter. The call owners can unmute other participants if desired.

Give Group Call a Try

1. Visit: http://groupcall.timlytle.net
2. Login with Twitter
3. Click the 'host a call' link, then follow directions to join the call.
4. Send the join link to other users.
5. Refresh to update user list/twitter feed (sorry, no nice AJAX yet)
6. Mute/Unmute other callers.
7. Click end call link when you're done.

Music Monday by Mike Ivanov

Music Monday is the long-running tradition of posting your favorite songs on Twitter so that others can discover interesting new music.  My app lets you listen to tweets that contain MP3s.  You can skip songs you don't like so much, and it keeps a list of everything that was played and what you liked.

When you go to the website, put in your phone number for a list of everything you heard.  It's a fun way to kill a few minutes while discovering new music.  You may hate some songs and love others, but you never know what you will hear!

Give Music Monday a Try

First, call (866) 583-6913 and enter PIN 3969-6376.  Listen to some tunes and see if you like any of them.  After you hang up, go to http://mivanov.info/musicmonday and put in the phone number from which you called.  You will get a list of all the tweets and songs you heard with links to the original tweets on Twitter.  From there you can follow, retweet, and reply as usual.

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Learn more about our weekly developer contest, and how you could win a Netbook, by visiting our contests page.  We announce a new contest category every Monday, and submissions are due by 11:59pm on the following Sunday.  Email help@twilio.com if you have suggestions for contest categories, or any ideas for how we can keep this contest fun and exciting.  Thanks!

Special Offer for Y Combinator Companies

At the beginning of 2010 a batch of new startups are getting underway in the Y Combinator program and we'd love to see them using Twilio. 

Last May we made an offer to Y Combinator companies to credit their Twilio accounts with $133.70 to use towards building their business, and we're doing it again now.  If you're a Y Combinator company and you'd like to claim your credit, just send us am email from your founders@ email address to help@twilio.com.

To learn more about Y Combinator and the companies that are a part of it, check out their blog, and applications are still open for Summer 2010 cycle.

Y Combinator Companies That Are Live

The ones that are currently launched (per the Y Combinator website) are: Reddit, Loopt, ClickFacts, Snipshot, Inkling Markets, Wufoo, Thinkature, JamGlue, Scribd, Weebly, Virtualmin, Buxfer, Octopart, Heysan, Justin.TV, OMGPOP, Xobni, Zecter, Adpinion, Fuzzwich, Bountii, Songkick, Auctomatic, Disqus, Splashup, Draftmix, Etherpad, Webmynd, RescueTime, Heroku, Tipjoy, Addmired, Socialbrowse, Wundrbar, Chatterous, Mixwit, Snaptalent, Clickpass, Insoshi, MightyQuiz, 280 North, Dropbox, Posterous, Anyvite, TicketStumbler, PopCuts, Ididwork, Startuply, Picwing, CO2Stats, PollEverywhere, Backtype, ContestMachine, Frogmetrics, ZumoDrive, Heyzap, FathomDB, Foodoro, Divvyshot, Echodio, Cloudkick, AirBnb, TheSixtyOne, Vidly, Voxli, Bump, RentHop, Listia, FanChatter, HighlightCam, FlightCaster, Directed Edge, RethinkDB, Olark, DailyBooth, Mixpanel, and WakeMate.

Exploring the Power of Voice in Blogging at Wordcamp Boston

This past weekend we headed to Boston to hang out at Microsoft Research (lovingly called the NERD Center, for New England Research and Development) on the M.I.T. campus at Wordcamp Boston, and meet the passionate people gathering to learn and share their skills around Wordpress. 

Wordpress is a powerful content management and blogging platform created by Automattic, with a highly active developer community focused on improving Wordpress.org, the open source version, and building themes, plugins and other productivity tools for content publishers.

Talking Twilio & the Future of Voice in Blogs on the Unconference Track

As part of the Wordcamp program, attendees could propose 30 minutes talks that the audience would then vote on.  The talks with the greatest number of votes received an afternoon spot and our talk about using voice on your blog was one of the ones selected.  Check out the talk and brainstorming session lead by Danielle:

Twilio wp-click2call Plugin Launches at Wordcamp Boston from Twilio on Vimeo.

Try the wp-click2call Plugin For Yourself

Our simple click to call plugin is live now and available for download on the Wordpress repository.  We've also open-sourced the code and you will find it on Github. 

To get started all you need to do is:

• * Download the wp-click2call plugin
• * Activate the plugin in your Wordpress install
• * Configure the admin settings of the plugin with your Twilio account details and preferences
• * Add the code snippet anywhere on your blog (sidebar, header, body, etc.)

If you have questions about how to use this plugin, or suggestions for how we can bring voice and telephone to your blog, please drop us a note at help@twilio.com, we're always listening and are looking forward to discussing your ideas and planning for the future.

Twilio Talks Cloud Telephony for the Enterprise at ITEXPO

This week, we're in Miami Beach for the annual Internet Telephony Expo & Conference, where we're meeting with and learning from individuals in the telecommunications industry.  This year, the addition of the Cloud Communications Summit has made it more relevant than ever before for companies like Twilio to participate in discussions around the future of telecommunications.

We're passionate about helping our customers in improving business processes, revolutionizing voice development, and in the process we're changing the landscape for APIs, providers, resellers, and everyone in the value chain.  This is why the discussions around cloud communications are so interesting, deep, and varied.

Attending ITEXPO? 

Cloud Telephony for the Enterprise at 12:00pm

The panel will be moderated by Thomas Howe, and the panelists are Troy David of Cloudvox, Dan York of Voxeo and our own Evan Cooke.  The session discusses tradeoffs in deploying communications applications behind the firewall, with a hosted partner or through elastic mechanisms such as Amazon’s EC2.

View the full agenda for the Cloud Communications Summit; the event runs from 9am to 3pm and you can still register to attend here.

Can't Make It?  Watch the Video

You don't have to come all the way to Miami to learn about cloud communications. We'll be filming Evan's talk, and posting it to our blog as soon as it is edited down (hopefully later today).

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Are you interested in meeting with Evan to discuss how cloud telephony can benefit your business?  Contact help@twilio.com to coordinate an onsite meeting at ITEXPO in Miami this week, or to set up a phone call.  Members of the press please contact press@twilio.com.  Thanks!

Voice 3.0 Companies Are Hot - ITEXPO Contest for Voice Apps

If you've been following the Twilio blog, you know that just recently we announced two Twilio customers, Pebb.ly and Say Hired, were selected by a panel of judges on the board of ITExpo to present at StartupCamp Telephony in Miami on Thursday of this week.

We've got yet ANOTHER contest for you - and this is one that every Twilio customer who has built a voice-enabled application can appreciate. 

Submit your voice application by MIDNIGHT TONIGHT and you could be selected to be featured at the Cloud Communications Summit this week at ITEXPO.  We will be reaching out to past winner of our developer contest and other launched applications to get these submissions in under the deadline, but if we don't know about what you've created this is your chance to share with the world.

SUBMIT HERE

The most interesting application developed on Twilio, Cloudvox, Broadsoft, and Voxeo will be selected and presented to a live audience.

From the contest website:

The Voice Services world as we know is in a revolutionary state of change, thanks to open development platforms, the rapid evolution of the 'cloud' and the many innovative developers and entrepreneurs leveraging these advancements to deploy applications that implicate voice.

To expose the hard work being done at large in the community, the organizers of StartupCamp Telephony and The Cloud Communications Summit - both with the support of ITExpo (TMCnet) - have launched the first ITExpo Voice App Contest, running now through January 19th. The form to submit the information required to enter is below.

If you're developing or recently developed an application on one the participating platform vendors -Broadsoft, CloudVox, Twilio or Voxeo - we'd love to hear about it.

Your involvement assures that the community continues to grow and gets the exposure it deserves. So please join us.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/28329455@N06/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

WSDOT Twitter Voice Reports Win Netbook Contest for Twitter Mashups

This past week, we challenged Twilio developers to build mashups with Twitter to voice enable the social web for the chance to win a Dell mini Netbook in our weekly contest.  Among the fun, creative, and useful submissions one application developed by Wayne Dyck at the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) stood out as truly groundbreaking.

UPDATE: The Twitter + Twilio category was so popular, that we are keeping the same category this week and developers who submitted last week are eligible to resubmit.  The deadline for submissions will be 11:59pm "midnight" on Sunday night.  Submit here

How WSDOT Twitter Voice Reports Work

If you are a Twitter user, you can receive automated voice calls for wait times at Washington State Ferries terminals and northbound Canadian border crossings by sending a direct message to @wsdot. You can send a direct message either from Twitter or from your phone via SMS. Include the terminal or border route id, and the phone number you would like to receive the call back on, and we'll send it to you.

Getting voice wait times for WSF terminals via Twitter

If you are a Twitter user you can receive automated voice calls for wait times at WSF terminals by sending a direct message to WSDOT. Send a direct message either from Twitter or from your phone via SMS, include the terminal id and the phone number you would like to receive the call on and we'll send it to you.

For a direct message from Twitter use this format:

wsf [terminal id] [phone number]

Example: wsf ana 360-XXX-XXXX

For current wait times from your cellphone, send a text message to 40404 using this format:

d wsdot wsf [teriminal id] [phone number]

Example: d wsdot wsf ana 360-XXX-XXXX

Terminal ids are based on the first three letters of the terminal name.

Getting voice Canadian border wait times via Twitter

If you are a Twitter user you can receive automated voice calls for northbound Canadian border wait times by sending a direct message to WSDOT. Send a direct message either from Twitter or from your phone via SMS, include the route id and the phone number you would like to receive the call on and we'll send it to you.

For a direct message from Twitter use this format:

border [route id] [phone number]

Example: border 5 360-XXX-XXXX

For current border wait times from your cellphone, send a text message to 40404 using this format:

d wsdot border [route id] [phone number]

Example: d wsdot border 5 360-XXX-XXXX

Route ids are based on the northbound highway number.

For more information, read all the details about this application on the WSDOT website.

 

Startup Weekend Contest Winner: InstantLoop

Through November and December of 2009, we challenged developers in 10 cities worldwide to include Twilio's API in their projects for the chance to win Netbooks for their entire team.  We're excited to announce Voicify, which was recently rebranded as Instant Loop for their beta launch this week, as the winner of our the Twilio Startup Weekend Challenge. 

Congratulations to the Instant Loop team members: Michael Potter, Marvin Paul, Andy Macdonald, Ross Overstreet, Joshua Siler, and Keith Nichols - you've each won a Netbook, and they're on the way!

How Instant Loop Works

Instant Loop is a quick and simple way to find out what people think.  As they explain on their site:

"InstantLoop calls your customers with the questions you want answered. It then displays the results in easy to read graphs to help you make better decisions about your business."

The service is built using Twilio to power the phone calls and it is ridiculously simple to set up a survey.  Just enter the questions and options into the form, upload the contacts you'd like to call, and start your survey.

About Startup Weekend

Startup Weekend events are held across the U.S. and internationally to promote entrepreneurship.  During an intense 54 hours (Friday night through Sunday afternoon) individuals pitch, teams form, products are developed, launched, and presented.  The event is an opportunity for those contemplating starting a company to experiment with roles, business ideas, leadership, and to make connections that can turn into cofounders.

About Twilio Developer Contests

It's always fun to win a gadget, but we know developers care about more than just the prizes.  That's why we've made an effort to bring attention to all the creative, powerful, and useful ways that developers are making Twilio a part of their businesses and skillset.

We run a weekly developer contest focusing on different industries, use cases, and technologies that can be combined with Twilio to build powerful applications.  If you have a suggestion for a contest category you'd like to see, or any suggestions for how we can improve the experience for developers in the Twilio community please let us know.

The Power of Voice 3.0 for Software Consultants

This is a guest post by David Rudder, President of Reliable Response.  Dave is an active member of the Twilio developer community, and his company specializes in IT emergency notification solutions. 

As software consultants, we're always looking to better our services so that they make happier customers and bring in more hours under higher rates.  Most of us specialize in some way.  Either we do web pages, data integration, IT support or maybe we serve some industry that is poorly served by off-the-shelf software.  Voice 3.0 is a burgeoning industry which can help you, the software consultant, to expand your offerings and bring more value to your niche.

Web Services Benefit Businesses

Public web services are finally beginning to yield benefits for businesses and the software consultants that serve them.  Google Maps, a leader in public web services, is being used to provide mapping capabilities to thousands of businesses.  New services which make it easier for businesses to do business are cropping up every day.  Just look at Programmable Web.

One of the most exciting new class of services is hosted voice services, what is now being called Voice 3.0.  Companies like Twilio now allow you to connect your applications to the public-switched telephone network (PSTN).  Simple examples include click-2-call, the ability to call a contact directly from a web page.  Or, a fully touch-tone driven business process.  I have designed apps which give mobile customers the ability to approve purchase requests in the field and apps to allow field-techs to add notes to a ticket via telephone.

Differentiate Yourself with Voice Development Skills

Writing Voice 3.0 apps gives you a cache of skills that gives you a leg-up on other developers.  You can use your new voice capabilities to offer new products to existing customers or to expand your reach into customers that you couldn't interest in the past.  The barrier to entry is low, for example $5/month with Twilio (or free while you're in development), and the skills are easy to acquire.  Adding voice capabilities means your skillset is in higher demand, thus increasing the rate you can charge and decreasing the time you need to spend selling your services. 

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Would you like to share how you're using Twilio in your business?  We invite you to write a guest blog post, just drop us a note at help@twilio.com to get started.  Thanks!

Watch as StartupCamp Telephony Disrupts ITEXPO Miami Next Week

Next week, we'll be heading South to Miami Beach for the annual Internet Telephony Conference & Expo to participate, listen, learn, and support our developers who have been invited to present.

This year, things are getting more exciting with the introduction of two new events co-located with ITEXPO that are right up our alley: Startup Camp Telephony and the Cloud Communications Summit.

Twilio Powered Startup Presenting at Startup Camp Telephony

As we announced on our blog last month, we challenged Twilio developers who had integrated our product into their startup to apply for the chance to present.  The event saw 25 submissions, and two Twilio-powered startups have been selected.  As promised, we'll be flying them to Miami to present on January 21st.

Larry Lisser, of Embrase, is the man behind this event (read about how Startup Camp Telephony came together on his blog) and we're so happy to get to work with him on creating more community and bringing attention to startups who are taking advantage of commodity voice to build viable businesses.

This is just the first year of this event, and we wouldn't be shocked to see three times as many startups presenting next year with a full day event.

Pebb.ly - Automating Marketing

Pebb.ly is a startup founded at Startup Weekend by Jason Corwin, Jeff Jenkins, and Brett Hardin and is currently in stealth mode. The founders were introduced to Twilio as part of the Twilio Startup Weekend Challenge (stay tuned, the winner will be announced this week).

The company will launch, and reveal what they've been working on for the first time to the public at Startup Camp Telephony next week.  All we can say is that they're working hard to make it easier for marketers to reach their audiences in a way that is user friendly and effective.  We'll leave it to them to say more.

Say Hired - Automating Recruiting

SayHired was also founded at Startup Weekend by Guy Hirsch, Mark Thomas, and Mariya Genzel and they are using telephony to help companies remove the hassles and high costs from the hard process of recruiting job candidates.

Their product helps companies sort through resumes to determine who is most likely to be a hire and perform automated phone screens.  Say Hired was also founded at Startup Weekend San Francisco.