by ikarandeep on 4/27/20, 6:45 PM with 150 comments
by seancoleman on 4/27/20, 7:06 PM
At the time, twitter allowed you to receive SMS notifications of tweets posted to a followed account. I created a private account and used twitter's API to post tweets to with the notification content I wanted to send. I then had "dummy" accounts follow the "notification" account. These dummy accounts had recipient phone numbers with SMS notifications turned on.
The flow was: Web App -> Twitter API -> Tweet from "notification" account -> followers received SMS notifications. Free SMS delivery!
It was clunky and SMS notifications looked like they came from twitter (they did) but it solved my use case perfectly.
by meigwilym on 4/27/20, 7:10 PM
by aaronlifshin on 4/27/20, 7:14 PM
But this is not necessarily true, as spoofing a source phone number of an SMS is a lot easier than receiving an SMS that was sent to another number.
by koverda on 4/27/20, 6:58 PM
I'd have to second this guess. SMS is much more expensive than push notifications.
by cfv on 4/27/20, 11:08 PM
Not only that, but also their community building and tending is abysmal too, so your app will end up used mostly by the kind of user that brings infinitesimal value with them.
Twitter isn't worth it.
by eigen-vector on 4/27/20, 6:59 PM
edit: removed a comment on about 2-FA as it takes away from the intended point.
by herf on 4/27/20, 7:25 PM
What else to do but use Twitter through SMS? It was surprisingly still very good--could follow the news at very low bandwidth.
by crazygringo on 4/27/20, 7:50 PM
But honestly the time has long since passed where it still makes sense to support. Smartphone notifications with the app are far superior in every way. (And if you don't want to install the app? I mean, just don't use Twitter then.)
And the only people who don't have smartphones these days are the kind of people who have made an intentional choice to reduce their always-on digital connection. They are the very least likely people to use Twitter anyways.
It's a good thing when a company is able to simplify its software architecture to remove code that's expensive to maintain and keep protected from security vulnerabilities.
by QuantumGood on 4/27/20, 9:21 PM
People used to think we— @Twitter_Tips —worked for Twitter. When Twitter forced us to change our username to @TweetSmarter, @Twitter_Tips became a "new" account (that no one could use) that started with zero followers. In a few weeks it racked up over 250,000 followers—that were "ours"—because of all the press, blogs, lists, good will, etc we had on that account.
We supported the great software ecosystem that grew up around Twitter, and watched closely as Twitter killed it all off.
by yosito on 4/28/20, 9:52 AM
by HenryBemis on 4/28/20, 7:19 AM
So Dan was a freeloader, instead of HIM paying the cost to notify HIS subscribers (aka TWITTER followers), he externalised/rolled off the cost to Twitter. Now that Twitter wants to do some cost-cutting and Dan has to pay HIS own "phone bill" for HIS customers, Dan is calling out on Twitter? Suck it up bro.
When I hear people complaining that "in our office they changed the coffee to a shittier one", I know what this is a prelude for avalanche of cost cutting measures. SMS in Twitter are being switched off? Blame the folks that created their business on someone else's £€¥$ and the Twitter shareholders came calling for more profit.
I wonder what are the savings that Twitter is making by flipping that switch off...
by tallgiraffe on 4/28/20, 4:11 AM
by mkchoi212 on 4/27/20, 7:17 PM
by jdofaz on 4/27/20, 9:02 PM
by tracker1 on 4/27/20, 7:21 PM
by donatj on 4/27/20, 10:25 PM
by 0xff00ffee on 4/28/20, 12:08 AM
LONG LIVE TXT2MOB!
by cicadas on 4/28/20, 2:42 AM