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Congratulations to Abine, Winner of Twilio's Firefox Extensions Developer Contest

Abine is a free Firefox extension for online privacy from "The online privacy company" of the same name. It is also the winner of our Firefox extensions contest. Abine makes it easy to manage your privacy online, including using Twilio to mask your phone number while registering for services. Congratulations to Rob Shavell and the rest of the team at Abine. Your netbook and $100 in Twilio credit are on the way!

We asked Rob a couple questions about his experiences building Abine with Twilio.

Tell us about Abine

Rob: We believe the time is right for a new company to put users back in control of their online privacy - we looked around and couldn't find a single company doing simple basic online privacy the way we think it should be done (completely and correctly) for regular users.

We have grown by over 1,000% in our first 30 days, so things are moving quickly. Our future plans are to stick to what we do best - making sure that everyone (not just super technical users) can have more control over their digital life - especially control over what gets tracked, stored, and shard on us without our explicit permission.

What technologies are you using?

Rob: We use Twilio, of course. In addition, we integrate a bunch of other basic web technologies - the add-on offerings - for both Firefox and IE (http://www.abine.com/agreement.php) are mainly Javascript with various encryption components to we make sure the data is safe on the users machine, no matter the platform.

How did you get started developing with Twilio?

Rob: Twilio was recommended to us AFTER we tried several other communications platforms and API's. Twilio was far superior - cost effective, scalable, and way easier to use.

How was the experience of integrating Twilio with your chosen tools and technologies?

Rob: Honestly it was quite simple and straightforwards. We were up and running with our first version in a few days.

Anything else?

Rob: Please give Abine a try - the basic suite is free, and comes with ready to help anyone keep safe from spammers, stalkers or aggressive marketers.

We also have a couple screencasts to demonstrate how Abine works. You can see a demo of our Twilio-enhanced features here and our web tracking blocking features here.

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Have you built an app with Twilio? You could win a netbook.

For this week's contest, we've opened up the flood gates. If you've built something, anything, that uses Twilio you could win a netbook and $100 in Twilio credit for this week's Anything Goes contest. Hurry though, the contest ends Sunday. Read more about the contest and how to enter your Twilio creation.

New Twilio Netbook Contest: Anything Goes!

Every week we pick a category for our netbook contest. Sometimes members of our community tell us that they want to submit an app, but it doesn't fit into any of the categories we pick. If you fall into this category, this week's contest is for you!

The contest category for this week is Anything Goes. To qualify, submit an app/mashup/plugin/open source project/etc. that uses Twilio, OpenVBX or Stashboard. That's the only requirement. Previous non-winning entries are free to enter again as well. The best submission as judged by Twilio wins a netbook and $100 in Twilio credit. This contest ends Sunday August 1st at 11:59pm PST.

Submit your entry now

Volunteer Kansas Wins Twilio Goes Green Netbook Contest!

Congratulations Michael Cantrell and Volunteer Kansas, you are the winner of last week's Go Green with Twilio netbook contest! Michael has won a netbook and $100 in Twilio credit.

Volunteer Kansas is an organization that exists to match up people with volunteer opportunities. These opportunities run the full gamut of volunteer work, including work for numerous environmental causes and groups.

Using Technology to Inspire Action

Each year, more than one-third of all Kansans volunteer in some way. Many others remain on the sidelines because they don’t feel empowered to get involved or they don’t think they have enough time. Others have a tough time finding the right opportunity for them.

Volunteer Kansas makes it easier to volunteer by matching visitors to the site with opportunities at respected, well-established organizations throughout the state so they can spend less time looking for a place to volunteer and more time volunteering.

Their goal is simple: add 70,000 volunteers per year in the state of Kansas making it the #1 state in the country for volunteerism.

Michael Talks About Utilizing Twilio for Volunteer Kansas

We asked Michael a couple questions about his experiences using Twilio. 

How Was Volunteer Kansas Started?

The Downing Foundation in Wichita Kansas approached me to build a social media application to connect volunteers with volunteer organizations with the goal of driving Kansas to the number one state in the country for volunteerism.  We are currently ranked 8th but believe that this app will make the difference in helping people know who and what they can do and then actually commit to volunteer all in one place!

We were excited to integrate digital communications to expedite announcements and site communication.  We chose text-messaging and e-mail campaigns to do this.  We weren't sure the best way to integrate text message communication but once we checked out the Twilio API the choice was easy.  We are already thinking about unleashing two-way communication on the day of the volunteer event to allow for communicating reminders, delays, changes, weather, etc.  It is so exciting to think about all that we can do to change peoples lives through volunteerism and communicate digitally instead of sending a post-card or letter.  Thanks Twilio!

The project started in January 2010, is currently in beta-testing and is set to launch on August the second just over a week away!

It's exciting that Twilio will help Kansas become the #1 state in the country for Volunteerism! Watch for press releases, TV, radio (NPR), and you can't see it unless you're in Kansas, billboards promoting VK all across the state!

What technologies are you using to build/support Volunteer Kansas?

PHP, MySQL, Javascript, AJAX, Twilio, Campaign Monitor and Site5's new scalable cloud servers!

How did you get started developing with Twilio?

@chadmith, one of your previous winners turned me onto Twilio over lunch one day.  I  went back to the office checked out the API and realized it was perfect for our app.

How was the experience of integrating Twilio with your chosen tools and technologies?

EASY.  We were laughing in the office about how simple it was to integrate with the site and are already brainstorming on how to take the integration to the next level. 

Anything else you'd like to share?

We are working on our next app now completely centered on Twilio.  All I can say is it will be the hub of communication for day-care centers serving the Wichita area.

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Congratulations again Michael on winning this week's contest! Enjoy your netbook :)

Want to win a netbook of your own?

For this week's contest, we've tasked you to create the best Firefox extension that uses Twilio. Extensions are easy to create and can be made completely within your web browser using Mozilla JetPack and Builder. We've got links to resources for getting started and complete contest information available on the contest page.

New Twilio Netbook Contest: Firefox Extensions!

Firefox Extensions can help you add new functionality and features to your browser. For this week's Twilio developer contest, we're challenging you to create extensions for Mozilla Firefox that use the Twilio APIs.

Getting Started Building Firefox Extensions

Think building Firefox extensions is hard? It's not.

Using Mozilla Labs Jetpack, if you know HTML/JavaScript/CSS, you have the skills you need to get started. Jetpack even works with Mozilla's web-based IDE called Builder so you can get started without having to download any software. Of course, there's the native API as well if that's more to your liking.

Looking for ideas? Leave a comment on this page or feel free to drop us a line at help@twilio.com. You can also start or join a conversation about the contest in our forums.

 More Resources:

• Mozilla Labs Jetpack
• Mozilla Labs Add-ons Builder
• Add-ons Builder Documentation
• How to build a Firefox Extension

How to Enter the Contest

Developers have until 11:59pm on Sunday, July 25th, to submit a Firefox Extension to Twilio for the chance to win some sweet prizes.  Developers may submit as many add-ons to the contest as they wish, but can only win one prize.

Submit your Firefox Extension now

Prizes

The first place winner will receive a Netbook from Twilio and $100 in Twilio developer credit.

Inspiration for Going Green with Twilio This Week

This week for our developer contest we're challenging you to use Twilio voice and/or SMS to improve the environment.  You could win a Netbook and $100 in developer credit from Twilio if you come up with the most unique, powerful, creative submission.  How you can you use Twilio to help people or companies be more green? If you're looking for some inspiration, here are a couple ideas to start from.

Raise Awareness & Coordinate Efforts

Using SMS group messaging you can coordinate with others to take on your green initiatives. Messages and phone calls can let people know about upcoming events they can attend. Have an existing group of volunteers? Mobilize them with real-time information about where they can best be utilized.

Group calling can also be a great way to organize a carpool to work or to get your kid's little league team to their next away game.

Inform

Teach people how to live the green lifestyle through SMS tips and reminders. Or you could use Twilio to create a phone or SMS campaign to educate people about an initiative you are passionate about. 

Another way to keep people informed would be to set up a hotline for people to call in to learn more about your organization. For example, Earth911 uses Twilio to provide a recycling hotline to help people find the nearest recycling centers.

Save Resources

Automate a resource-consuming process with phone calls. Send out a lot of paper surveys? Try replacing them with phone-based surveys for faster responses that don't need to be recycled.

These ideas are just scratching the surface for how you could positively impact the environment using Twilio. What's your great idea? Build and submit your app by this Sunday at 11:59PM PST for a chance to win a netbook.

Congratulations to Jonathan Kressaty and Chad Smith, OpenVBX Contest Winners!

Over the past few weeks we've run a couple contests focusing on OpenVBX, our new open-source platform for building voice applications. We picked the winner for the first contest and left it up to you, the OpenVBX and Twilio community, to select the second winner. But enough chit chat, let's get to the winners!

OpenVBX Plugin Contest Winner
Jonathan Kressaty - Applet Scheduling Plugin

Mr. Kressaty's Applet Scheduling Plugin is a simple concept, executed flawlessly. The plugin allows you to control your flows based on the current date and time. It's an extremely common use case with countless practical applications. I was in the room the first time Jonathan showed off a prototype of this plugin and the usefulness of the plugin was immediately apparent to everyone there.

Jonathan describes how the Applet Scheduling Plugin came to be, "The applet came out of necessity. I wanted to be able to push my Ripstyles customers to a different set of applets when we were closed/weekends/holidays/etc. In the future, I'd like to make it a little easier from a UI perspective to make different rules, but it works great now and I'm not a fan of breaking things that work!"

Great work Jonathan, your netbook is on the way!

OpenVBX Community Contribution Contest Winner
Chad Smith - Poll Plugin

It was an *extremely* close vote, but by the narrowest of margins, Chad Smith's Poll Plugin was voted the winner of the OpenVBX Community Contribution Contest. Chad's plugin allows you to easily build voice- and SMS-based polls within the OpenVBX flow editor. Described by one member of the community as "nearly perfect," the plugin narrowly edged out Andrew Watson's equally-awesome Notifo plugin in voting that came right down to the wire.

Chad talks about developing for OpenVBX, "My favorite thing about it is how easy it is to create a new application, so about a week ago I decided to write a blog post to illustrate just that. The post (which has since been deleted because I stink at writing) was a walkthrough of how to create a phone poll using OpenVBX and my subscriptions plugin. After reading the post I figured it would be even easier to create a plugin specifically for polls."

To get started with the plugin, add a new poll and some choices under Manage Polls. Then drop it into a new Flow after a menu to record the caller or sender's selection. That's it! There's a demo of the polls plugin at 316-251-0963.

Chad is also working on an Twilio/OpenVBX Android app so you can manage call queues and use your Twilio numbers from anywhere. Can't wait to see it Chad!

Congratulations again to both Jonathan and Chad for their outstanding contributions!

This Week's Contest

For this week's contest, we're going green! This week's category is using Twilio to benefit the environment. We've seen some great examples like Earth911 that use Twilio to help the planet. Now it's your turn. How would you use Twilio to save the planet? The best submission wins a netbook and $100 in Twilio credit. The contest ends Sunday July 18th at 11:59PM PST.

OpenVBX Community Choice Contest

In the spirit of the community OpenVBX has spawned, Twilio is leaving it up to you to decide who should win the this week's contest. The winner of the Community Choice contest will receive a netbook and $100 in Twilio credit. 

From now until Sunday July 4th at 11:59PM PST we'll be taking nominations for the best contribution to the OpenVBX community.

This can be any contribution:

• a plugin
• a patch
• a theme
• blog post
• how-to article
• fan fiction, etc.

We'll take the 5 most nominated contributions and put them up for an open vote starting next Monday. The most votes takes home the netbook!

Submit your OpenVBX Community Choice Contest nominations here.

Our first OpenVBX-themed contest just wrapped up. We've begun the judging process and will announce a winner soon. We've got some great entries so stay tuned.

Build an OpenVBX plugin for a chance to win a netbook and $100 in Twilio credit

Since launching OpenVBX last week we've seen an incredible amount of enthusiasm from both new and existing Twilio developers. Developers are taking advantage of the powerful plugin API to build real value for businesses using OpenVBX.

To inspire you to build your own plugin, this week's Twilio developer contest is for the best OpenVBX plugin. You can win a netbook and $100 in Twilio credit if your plugin is selected as the winner. The contest ends this Sunday June 27th at 11:59PM PST. You can read more details over at the contest page.

If you're not sure where to get started building your plugin, check out the Plugin API Documentation or browse the plugin directory for inspiration. What are you waiting for? Build a plugin and win yourself a netbook!

Andrew Albrechtsen wins "Powering Up Customer Service" Twilio Developer Contest

Our latest netbook contest category wrapped up last Sunday and we're happy to announce that Andrew Albrechtsen of Photography Avenue has won for his "Powering up Customer Service" entry.

Andrew is currently an Information Systems major (and photography minor) at Long Island University's C.W. Post campus. He has been building websites since he was in middle school, and more recently has been trying to build his brand as a nature photographer and web developer with his website Photography Avenue.

Looking for an easy way to provide his customers better service, Andrew turned to Twilio. Andrew describes his contest entry:

Until now, our customer service approach was email-based, and while it did work, it was missing that personal touch customers look for. Thanks to Twilio, we've enabled our web applications to interact with incoming calls, place outgoing ones, and send and receive SMS messages on the fly, vastly improving our customer service abilities.

By calling us at (631) 647-0909, customers can track order statuses, enable or disable SMS notifications, and be connected to customer service. What sets our approach apart from other tracking systems is our ability to automatically look up the most recent order associated with the caller's phone number. This way, customers wishing to track their order on-the-go don't need to have their 10-digit order number on hand to be able to keep tabs on it.

Customers calling us also have the option to be connected to customer service. Instead of simply transferring the caller to another phone number, we've built a custom call queue application that shows a customer service operator all calls waiting for service, along with their respective order and/or account numbers. An operator can then click on any call in the queue to connect the caller to them and the customer's order and/or account information is automatically displayed on the screen without any extra effort. If a call is not connected to an agent within thirty seconds, the caller will be asked to either request a callback or leave a voice message. Callback requests are also shown in the queue and an operator can place the call with a single click.

Photography Avenue account holders can opt to receive SMS notifications with order status updates. A customer might want to disable these for whatever reason, and alternatively to sending "STOP" to our Twilio number, they can disable them with a call as well. Our application will automatically check to see if the caller is an account holder and ask for the account's zip code to disable SMS notifications if they're signed up. If the account isn't signed up for SMS notifications, the caller can opt out by entering the account's zip code as well. Should the caller's phone number not be associated with any account, they will be prompted to create one on our website.

Instead of calling us to track an order, some customers might prefer to send an SMS. Our application will respond with order status information if it receives an SMS message containing the word "order" followed by a 10-digit order number. We realize that it's not realistic to expect customers to remember a 10-digit number, so if the requesting phone number is listed on an account, an SMS request containing the word "track" will result in a reply with tracking information for the last order placed using the account.

Like tracking an order over the phone, there is an option to speak with someone about the order. An SMS reply of the number 1 will initiate an outgoing call to to the sender with their order and/or account information already in the queue.

What was it like working with Twilio? Andrew explains:

I stumbled upon Twilio several months ago through a press release about the company receiving a new round of funding, and was extremely intrigued by its feature set and dead-simple API. Being a college student on a budget, the free $30 developer credit spurred me to sign up and within minutes I had a test application running. It's very important for a developer (at least for myself, anyway) to be able to test an API within a few minutes to get a feel for it and make sure everything's working right. Every time I've contacted Twilio, I've received a prompt and friendly response! Even when I posted a thread about a bug on the support forum, it was fixed immediately and I was notified that it had been. Integrating with Twilio has been an absolute pleasure, and I'd love to possibly intern or work for the company in the future.

The app was built using PHP and MySQL. I also think it's really great that now everyone -- not just large businesses -- can now build fully interactive phone and SMS systems. I think it really adds a layer of credibility when a website can not only list a telephone number, but also offer a powerful and professional phone application as well.

Congratulations Andrew on your winning entry! Your netbook is on the way :)

New Contest Category: OpenVBX Plugins

To celebrate yesterday's OpenVBX launch, this week's contest category is OpenVBX plugins. If you're unfamiliar with OpenVBX start by learning more about the open source project or check out the Plugin API documentation. The OpenVBX plugins contest ends June 27th at 11:59PM PST. Read more about this week's contest.

Announcing the winner of the Alerts & Notifications Twilio Developer Contest!

Last week, for our weekly developer contest, we challenged Twilio developers to build applications using Twilio voice and SMS that power up alerts and notifications, and it's time to announce the contest winner.  

If you are looking for the new contest category, please scroll down.

Airplane Booking System by Carl Tyler

Carl’s Airplane Booking System uses Twilio so that users can book a plane using their phone, and receive notifications to booking changes through SMS.

The flying club had been going for 40 years, and had been using a paper based system. With some club members not being particularly computer literate, it was key that those folks could still book the plane over the phone, which is where Twilio came in.

Whilst moving to an online booking system, Carl also wanted to add other capabilities, such as notifying interested members if a booking was canceled or changed.  Using Twilio, this capability was expanded from e-mail to also include SMS notifications.

The response from the flying club members has been great, with all the members finding it easy to use.  The application is currently used by only by Yellow Bird Flying Club,  but Carl has plans to productize the solution so that other flying clubs can use it.

Carl put together a YouTube video demonstrating how the booking system works:

Interview with the Developer: Carl Tyler

How did you come up with the idea for your submission?

I own a share in a plane.  The booking system was paper based, where you would either visit the airport to book the plane, or phone someone that had access to the calendar at the airport.  I wanted to move to an online system, but some of the older members don't like using the web, so still wanted to call, Twilio gave me that capability.

What technologies, tools, etc. did you use to build it (feel free to get into the details, our readers are technically minded)?

I used Lotus Domino, not the first choice for many I know, but as someone that has been using Notes and Domino for close to 20 years it made it easy for me to build it.  Combing Domino with the Scheduling UI found at www.dhtmlx.com made it easy to build a booking system in a weekend. 

How long did it take to build?

The Calendar/web UI took a weekend, the telephone integration using Twilio for notifications and IVR took another weekend.

What problem does it solve?

It allows members of the flying club to book and check bookings over the phone.  Combined with the SMS notifications sent through Twilio and users can more easily book the plane.

What did you think of the experience of working with the Twilio API, any feedback for us?

I'm not a professional programmer by trade, tending to be more of a project manager working with developers, so for someone like me to be able to use the Twilio API and build something in a weekend was fantastic.  I found the experience to be great.  Debugging could be a little tricky, but once I found the debug info on the twilio site life was much easier.

This Week's Developer Contest

Would you like to build Twilio apps for a chance to win prizes and be featured in the Twilio blog? We host a weekly developer contest and would love to have you involved, so please take a look at our contest page for more details. This week’s contest is Powering Up Customer Service and you have until midnight on Sunday June 13th to submit your apps.  Happy coding!