Tools of the Trade
This post justly fits into the category of web development.
Here is an analysis of the twitter tool I created, from a programmer’s perspective.
First, I really didn’t want to make my own tool. I’d rather get one for free and manipulate it to do my bidding. I searched for quite awhile for the correct tool and the only one I found created a cron job which dumped data into a database. Good enough. However, this was only 25% of the esoteric equation of information manipulation. I needed more. I had to create my own tool
I understand that making tools can get Innovators and Real Entrepreneurs to take notice. This was an element of my motive.
Some history (snooze):
Back in the mid 90’s I ran a series of websites. These websites contained news about topics both popular and obscure. I created a tool that scanned a thousand websites for the latest updates. As a result, I was able to borrow the latest news far before anyone else. Eventually I sold these tools to Innovators for a reasonable sum. My tools created a competitive advantage. On my own server (which was pricey at the time) I hosted others and earned a few bucks based on their traffic. A princely wage it was not, but paying the cost of doing business it did.
The tool I borrowed dumps data into the database in a timely fashion. The tool I created uses php, mysql, some javascript, and other blinking lights. My tool goes into this other database and retrieves tweets. It uses SELECT and retrieves a row of about 70 tweets. It displays HTML in the form of a FORM which displays the tweets. It also takes URLS within the tweets and makes them clickable. This includes any HTTP, #, or USERNAME type of reference. This is for the benefit of blog readers interested in clicking on value-added information located at the top of every category of the site. My tool also makes the tweets searchable. At present there are three thousand tweets to search through and it has only been a couple of days. Thus I use search terms to search through the tweets of tweeters I follow.
I then generate lists of content-rich tweets that I hand-pick for each category of my blog.
There are a couple of sections of the program I built. One generates the list, the other searches the list select, and the other processes the information selected.
Even though this blog has yet to be launched there are already people clicking on the tweets that I have hand selected. This is good news, as this is evidence that the tweets I select provide value-added information.
Twitter moves ultra-fast, It creates a steady stream of information far too wide for any one human to digest. Thus the web development motive for creating this tool is to intercept the very best from this vast stream of tweets and provide value-added content for my readers.
There are other areas I can go with this, just so you know.