Tim Lytle Wins the Twilio + Drop.io Contest with DropMail
Time to read: 3 minutes
March 22, 2010
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A couple weeks ago, we ran a Twilio + Drop.io developer contest that culminated with a trip to Brooklyn to co-host an API hackathon at the Drop.io headquarters. We challenged developers combine Twilio phone nad SMS functionality with Drop.io’s dead simple private sharing service.
A 72 hour whirlwind trip ensued, and we found ourselves immersed in the startup culture of New York City and Brooklyn’s DUMBO neighborhood, just across the bridge.
From coworking spaces like New Work City and Dogpatch Labs (thank you David Lifson and Postling crew!), to a packed auditorium of over 500 people for the New York Tech Meetup, to numerous coffee dates with friendly folks who found out we were traveling via Twitter, it was a blast. We can’t wait to come back and explore!
A special thank you to Eric Skiff, API evangelist for Drop.io, who welcomed our last minute suggestion to do a hackathon in tandem with the developer contest to get people started with our two services. They opened their office to us, and we brought the pizza and beer – the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Contest Winner! Tim Lytle Builds DropMail on Twilio & Drop.io
So without further ado, we’re happy to announce the winner of this contest category is Tim Lytle, who drove from Philly to hang out with us in Brooklyn and built an awesome service called DropMail using Twilio and Drop.io. As Tim explains:
“DropMail is part of a larger application, a ‘twimlet’ that plays/says a message and sends it to a drop. Once the file is converted by Drop.io, a pingback call updates the asset with the number/city and, if enabled from Twilio, the caller ID.”‘
Give DropMail a Try
To attach to your own number:
Base Url: http://supercontact.timlytle.net/voicemail/leave
- Get Params
- drop: drop to send audio to
- token: auth token if needed (this isn’t HTTPS, so token is sent in plain text)
- message: text or URL to play for greeting
- notify: number to send a SMS notice to (can be blank)
- notify: message of notice (can be blank)
- sms: text to send caller (can be blank)
- thankyou: text or URL to play after recording
484-748-0996 is pointing to: http://bit.ly/a93d9M
How did you come up with the idea for DropMail?
Sam Lessin actually put a bit more complex version of the concept on the
whiteboard at the hackathon, and said that there were many people
wanting just a custom greeting to leave a ‘voicemail’ at drop.io. The concept was also
part of a larger contact system I hope to one day deploy (a smarter
‘contact us’ webform).
What technologies, tools, etc. did you use?
Zend Framework, the Twilio PHP Library, and my own (limited) Drop.io
library.
How long and/or how many lines of code did it take for you to create
your app?
Since it’s currently part of a bigger Zend Framework MVC based project,
I’m not sure of the code ‘line count’. I don’t quite remember the time
either, but put it together over the weekend.
What advice do you have for developers who are just getting started with
Twilio?
Just make something. It’s that easy.
Any other thoughts, feedback, ideas, etc. you want to share with us?
You know, drop.io’s
fax capabilities require a special coversheet, it would be great if
there were some way to accept faxes with Twilio.
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