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For #GiftofCode this year I wanted to build something useful for my family. One fun conversation topic that’s kept us close is what we are watching on Netflix and other streaming platforms.
While the in-app experiences of most major streaming apps give recommendations aplenty, making a recommendation bot that someone could text sounded like a fun thing to try.
I had a few requirements in mind for this one:
- Power the bot using Twilio Autopilot
- Ask the texter for the type of media they want to watch and which genre
- Use the Netflix “Viewing Activity” data to determine shows and movies my family has already watched
- Use a publicly available API in case other folks want to build their own
There are some useful streaming metadata APIs available. A robust paid option that I tried out was Reelgood. I ended up …
Build and Deploy with Liz Moy is a curiosity-driven podcast that explores the lives of people who create things with code. In this episode we dive into a conversation with a creative who makes things with code, hardware, soldering irons, and even, on occasion, faux fur.
Christine Sunu is a maker who designs and builds technology with emotive, human-centered interfaces. (She also happens to be IoT developer engagement manager at Twilio). We talked about Sourd.io, an IoT Sourdough Starter Monitor, which monitors your bread’s temperature, humidity, and rise, so you know how it’s growing and when it needs to be fed.
Her project was featured on The Verge and Mashable, uses Twilio Narrowband and can be easily attached to the top of a washable canning jar. We also talked about ways people can get started with their own IoT projects and you can get some more ideas from …
Build and Deploy with Liz Moy is a curiosity-driven podcast that explores the lives of people who create things with code. Some might describe themselves as creatives, programmers, musicians, artists, or even fashion designers. But the truth is that no matter what their title, they’re all developers.
Our first episode is with Nicole He, a creative technologist and game developer who made sms-bot.info, a resource that empowers anyone to build a SMS bot using Twilio and Google Sheets. We talked about the first game she ever built, the motivation behind building the tutorial, and possibilities of new features, like extending it for WhatsApp.
Subscribe and Listen on: APPLE PODCASTS | RSS | OVE …
On June 14, publisher Amistad Books launched an initiative to encourage people to purchase any two books by Black writers between June 13th – June 20th.
In addition, artists such as Noname have launched book clubs and dialogue to support Black voices in written works from anti-racist texts, to poetry, to science fiction and fantasy.
To help folks decide on something to read, I built a simple book recommendation bot using Programmable SMS with Python and Airtable to store the book data. The result is a guided conversation that allows the texter to choose a genre they want to read, and responds with a title of a book and a link to a Black-owned bookstore in the U.S. that has the book for sale, either in print,e-book, or audio book.
Try it by sending a text to (409) 404-0403. You can also see the Python code below and …
"Scandia 010" by How I See Life is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0
Airtable is like a cool big-budget superhero crossover between a spreadsheet and a database.
It’s easy to write to an Airtable from your Twilio app, so we’re going to take that idea and build off of it to make a SMS-driven survey app using Python and the Flask framework.
The survey app we are going to build will gather NPS, which stands for Net Promoter Score, a metric used to measure customer experience. However, you can customize the survey for purposes specific to your needs. Try it out by texting your favorite emoji to the number below.
We’ll go through this step-by-step, and we will do it all in a single file. If you would like to download the complete project you can find it in this GitHub repository: https://github.com/Eclairemoy/nps-survey
Building the Project
Prerequisites
To …
I like to joke that I’ve had four careers so far: public relations account executive, social media manager, content writer, and software engineer. But before any of those lives began, I was a classically trained ballet dancer and had hopes of making that a career. I trained for hours every day. I went to months-long summer intensive programs and practiced the same moves over and over, on the constant quest for improvement: quicker feet, tighter turns, and more exquisite expressions of artistry.
When I started college and decided to study journalism instead, I thought that meant that my dance “career” was over. In some ways, I grieved what I thought was the end of something that was once a huge part of my life. Over the years, I’ve learned that many folks get a chance to try different things and go down different paths. Whether they’re hobbies that bring you …