TWITTER: Who wants to build Twitterbots.com?
By Steve Poland • April 6, 2007
I own the domain ‘twitterbots.com‘ — I think it’d be great to have a central resource for people to post any Twitter bots they create or know of.
Below is what I have in mind — I’m willing to donate the server space (PHP 4/MySQL) to run the site if needed (or I’ll setup the nameservers to you, or I’ll redirect to you, or I’ll xfer the domain to you). If you’re interested in building the site — build it somewhere and send me a link to it. Then we’ll throw it up at Twitterbots.com (or change the domain over to you). I’d just like to see this website built, properly, and then you can have the domain.
Note: Check the comments of this post to see if anyone is working on this. And attention designers — maybe you can provide a design, while someone else does the programming work.
Details on TwitterBots.com:
- Objective: Central repository about all the twitter bots that exist – and eventually start monitoring them (how many friends they have, how many twitters they post publicly, etc).
- I want people to be able to post their latest bot creations. Sort by bot name, category, or overall user ratings. [Users input the twitter username, their name, their own URL, short title of the bot, larger description that shows commands, and category. Maybe this app pulls their Twitter username’s profile image. So a simple website allowing users to add, then you approve [to eliminate spammers] — maybe a category that shows pending.
- Allow people to comment on each bot.
- Homepage would display various bots by category. Initial categories: sports, weather, stocks, games, shopping, news, other.
- A contact page would allow people to submit suggestions for the site (including category ideas).
- Homepage could show the last 10 bots added (this would be an RSS feed).
- An admin page that displays newest bots added and awaiting approval. You can then approve them. Any new bot added sends an email to you. Admin page also allows quick edit of any bots info, or delete.
- This site could also show some generic Twitter-related posts — thus, pull in an RSS feed on the keyword ‘twitter’ from Technorati.
Anyone have other suggestions for this proposed website?
Comments
8 Responses to “TWITTER: Who wants to build Twitterbots.com?”
Got something to say?
Steve,
That is a great “get” on the domain name. Would likely have been gone in another day or two.
I think the site sounds like a great idea. However I do not have the time to dedicate to setting it up, managing etc., I would certainly want to post any twitter bot I created there.
Besides allowing comments on submitted bots, I’d recommend a user ranking (i.e. most popular, most downloaded, etc.) if you had not already thought of that.
A last thought, possibly some validation/testing or other criteria for bot submittal. Maybe a simple test run to ensure the bot functions as described before public posting.
Well one last quick thought - a twitter dating bot - for meeting people in your local area. (Don’t let my wife know I suggested this!!)
I would definitely be interested in designing for this project. Feel free to check out v8design.net and email me.
Sorry, let me just clarify, I’m not personally interested in creating and running a twitter related website. However I am very much interested in helping to design one (the layout, the images, videos, visuals etc.). If someone is looking to take this as a serious project and they are in need of a designer, feel free to email me.
Thanks.
Sandeep - I’ll be shooting you an email and see if we can collaborate on this idea. It’s a pretty simple concept, from a programming standpoint.
I bought ‘cooltwitterstuff.com’ and started to piece some stuff together with different categories, etc. I’m not a designer, so it is not visually stunning.
I started adding different categories but quickly got tired of adding ‘Here is another Twitter Widget that lets you add Tweets and read your timeline…’ so I’m waiting a bit till I work with it anymore. I actually wanted to get twitterbots.com, but looks like you grabbed it one day before me.
Anyways, I would be interested in working on this project.
With a PHP/MySQL server, why not just grab some open source Pligg code (PHP Digg clone) and go to town? It sounds like its got a lot of the ranking/commenting features that you already mentioned.
Of course Pligg is beta software. If that’s a concern why not go to Ning and have a site up in minutes? Sure, you’ll need a designer to douse Techquila Shots over the prefab but it sure would be a heck of a lot easier to get up and running, maintain, and expand because there’s a community behind the scenes that has done (or is doing) most of the work.
very cool idea, i’m really looking forward to seeing such a website. I’m a really late joiner on twitter stuffs (like, one week:) but I’m getting seriously hooked.
On a side note, the park page on twitterbots.com (all those “links”) is, from what I’ve been told, the best thing you can give to make sure you’re google sandboxed for long. A simple “coming soon” is probably better
Hi!
We would love to design and develop this. Checkout ... to see what we do and the work we have done. We have just launched our first online venture ... and this could be a good second one.
Please let me know if this interests you.
Prakash