"...as simple as possible, but not simpler." - Albert Einstein

Twitter as Mashup Message Queue

Posted: June 6th, 2008 | Author: Robin | Filed under: Projects, Twitter, Web Technology, WellyRoadAlerts | Tags: , , , | 1 Comment »

Trying to explain what’s cool about Twitter to a colleague yesterday, I put together a small script that scrapes the road alerts from AA Roadwatch and posts them to a twitter feed.

Why? Well Twitter is unique in that as well as being a social messaging platform, it also acts as a RSS/REST/SMS/IM gateway. I can post a message using the web service, and anyone can receive it as an SMS/text message or in their IM client if they follow it. In a way, it can be seen as a message queue with a publisher and multiple subscribers.

The beauty of Twitter is that I could whip up a first version of the WellyRoadAlerts mashup in just 20 minutes, as most of the work has been done for me.

There are many other examples of this sort of mashup out there, but in the meantime, some Wellingtonians might find this useful.

Check it out: http://twitter.com/WellyRoadAlerts

If you work for AA and don’t like me doing this, please let me know.

One Comment on “Twitter as Mashup Message Queue”

  1. 1 bryony said at 12:20 pm on June 12th, 2008:

    Wow, this is such a good usage of 2.0 technology! just goes to show that keeping it simple allows more useful applications of said technology to grow from it (like mushrooms on a log:) )

    Am thoroughly impressed with this!!

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