Twitter as a command-line

At Le Web 3, Ev Williams mentioned in his talk that Twitter can be thought of as a command-line.

Twitter can be used as a device-independent, global command line that sits on top of a large user-base. This suggests several things for the future of applications that take advantage of Twitter: for example, you could create a service that takes in commands, via Twitter, from various input devices. For a business, there is a cost-saving to be had, as well as a rapid launch and the flexibility of multiple ways of interacting with people.

People who have written about this:

• http://submitresponse.co.uk/weblog/2008/01/16/flu-addled-daft-idea-of-the-day-colouring-twitter/
• http://pistachioconsulting.com/blog/?p=174
• http://zeroinfluence.wordpress.com/2008/01/09/clouds-using-twitter-as-a-command-line-service/
• http://www.horsepigcow.com/2007/04/17/twitter-as-your-command-line-interface/
• http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/03/27/twitter-becomes-mobile-dev-platform/
• http://www.technologystory.com/2008/12/10/the-cloud-needs-focus/
• http://www.technologystory.com/2008/08/16/attack-of-the-micro-messages/
• http://servletsuite.blogspot.com/2008/12/information-server-on-top-of-twitter.html
• http://servletsuite.blogspot.com/2008/12/how-to-make-twitter-bot.html

Direct Message Bots

These users are automated bots that you can direct message. Send one a direct message, and it will message you back information.

• @WhoisBot - direct message a domain name 'domain.com' and have it's availability returned 'Available' or 'Taken'
• WhoIsHosting - Send a domain via DM to receive a reply telling you which web host they use according to WhoIsHostingThis.com
• cook4me - Cook virtual tasty treats, create scavenger hunts, easter eggs, delayed messages for your friends on twitter. A strange but fun experimental twitterbot. Read more at Cook4Me
• Birdhive - A bot that allows people to spread the word regarding their creative projects
• liketribe - A personal assistant that learns your tastes, advises you where to go, gives you directions, weather, and helps find friends, among its many astounding feats. Find more documentation here
• Map on demand - send some address and get back a map for the area         
• Twitter Do - A programmable personal Twitter bot. Easily make your own commands using web hooks!
• Forecast - Receive weather forecast for city or zip code.
• GasCalc - Track your fuel usage. Tweet Miles Price Gallons.
• I want Sandy - Sandy is your personal Twitter assistant; she'll remember things for you and send a reminder tweet just when you need it.
• IMDb The official Twitter account and bot for the Internet Movie Database. Get tweets for birthday, quotes, trivia and send bot requests for (brief) info on your favorite tv & movies & celebrities.
• JungleBot - Find books, DVDs, and music from Amazon.com using Twitter. Returns best result based on salesrank. Example "d junglebot dvd big lebowski". Find more documentation here.
• Okoli - Find restaurants, bars, shopping, museums, etc. in Prague
• OMG3 - Repeats whatever you direct message to it anonymously.
• RUWTbot - RUWT?'s game-watching robot provides sports scores and news for MLB, NBA, NHL, and the NFL.
• SpellCheck - Lily program that spellchecks a word.
• Stock - Receive current stock price.
• StreamFlow  - Get the most recent streamflow (stage, flow and water temperature) readings for stream and rivers across the U.S.A. monitored by the U.S. Geological Survey.
• Talk bot - send some words and get a reply
• Timer - Timer is a Twitter bot that helps you set an alarm for things you need to remember.
• Tipr - A Twitter-based interface to the Tipr tip calculator. Instructions.
• TwitterSecret - Anonymously post secrets to Twitter.
• Twitter 411 - create your own bot in minutes
• WordBot - Get help with crosswords and other word games.
• Dearlazy.com - Ask the LazyWeb through Twitter e.g. @dearlazyweb What type of bear is best? OR d dearlazyweb This is an anonymous question. If you follow @dearlazyweb then you'll be informed when someone answers (@dearlazyweb answer 1 Black) your question via direct message
• MakeChange - DM it, giving ideas on how to change the world, it will retweet them.
• BuyLater - Install the Firefox Extension, and this bot will DM you when your Amazon Items become available or change price.
• LiveTwitting - Live conference, meeting, and event coverage all through Twitter. The tutorial shows you the commands to start and stop, and how to edit your recorded tweets.
• Twanslate - Twitter Translator - Translate any text into multiple languages from Twitter. Great for on the go translation with your mobile phone. Learn how at Twanslate.com.
• Daylife News Bot - Get real-time news alerts, subscribe to journalists, and search the news.
• TweetTrak - Miss twitter's track functionality? TweetTrak Direct Messages you with tweets that matches your interests
• mite via Twitter - Track your working time directly via Twitter. (mite.account required)
• Remember The Milk - Interact with your Remember The Milk account through Twitter direct messages.
• VayuZillow - Get a house value estimate by providing a street address from Vayusphere and Zillow API
• VayuFedex - Get the status of a FedEx airbill number via this bot from Vayusphere and FedEx API
• TheTwitterBot - AutoFollow massive number of new people. Friend Adder, Auto status update, Auto DM, Auto Reply, Auto Stop Follow those who don't Follow you, Update using WP blog RSS Feeds, Or form pre-made messages from text files.

Reply Bots

These bots respond to tweets that are directed to them using the '@username' command in Twitter.

• MindMeTo - A way of remembering with Twitter. Send the bot reminders and get DM'd when important things need to be done.
• @RecipeBot - Send this bot a list of ingredients and it sends back recipes you can make. ie @recipebot onions,garlic,salt,pepper,oregano
• @holidaybot  - tell it your dates and times and it'll find you the best price for airport parking.
• @ticketbot - mention a gig and it'll try and find you tickets
• eCouchCoach - Send a NFL players name and it will send you information about the player.  Send it a NFL player's name and certain week and it will send you stats for that week.  Send it a NFL player's name and stats and it will give you their yearly stats.
• recomme - Music Recommendations: Send a band name or recording artist to @recomme, and it replies with a list of other bands worth checking out. It has a memory, and gives you a permanent link for your query. Direct messages also accepted.
• AccuWx Weather - Receive a weather forecast by sending a message to @AccuWx containing a US zip code or city, state or city, country.
• CommuterFeed.com (commuter) - Commuter Feed is a free service that lets you see reports on traffic incidents in your local area using Twitter. Commuter Feed works for any city that has an IATA airport code (e.g. LAX or LHR) worldwide.
• Foamee.com (ioubeer) - Give someone a pint of beer e.g. @ioubeer @twitterscreenname for being an amazing human being
• Foamee.com (ioucoffee) - Give someone a cup of coffee e.g. @ioucoffee @twitterscreenname because you need it
• Out of Five - Review gigs, movies and restaurants on the bus home e.g. "@oo5 No Country for Old Men 5 What sealed it for me was the atmosphere in the cinema moments after the end. Brilliant."
• Ventorium - Tweet a response to @ventorium, and Twitter will vent, gripe or generally blow off steam right back at ya. More info.
• Penfield Mood Organ - Rewrite your mood. Dial a mood by writing: @penfield followed by your desired mood. Click update. Your mood will be delivered to your brain immediately. More info: User Manual. Latest Moods.

• Mr. MileStone - Notifies you when you have reached 100 followers. Repeats every 100th.

• LazyTweet - Send requests and questions to @lazytweet (or tag #lazytweet) to reach a larger audience than your followers, get notified of replies with a @ reply from @lazytweet.

• votd - send it a Bible reference and it will return the text of the verse (direct or reply) - see the help page for more info.

• TasteKid - send it your favorite artists, movies and/or books and it will return recommendations of stuff you might like, based on your taste.

• TweeTrans - A Twitters/Google Translate mashup. Send a reply to @tweetrans with the language you want to translate to and get a reply back with the translation. Translates between over 40 languages. See site for proper usage.

• Radiosongs - Ever wanted to know what song is playing on the radio. Send a reply to @radiosongs and you will get the name of the song and the artist who sing it. ( Only available for AMP Radio Network(Malaysia) )

Announcements Bots

These users are automated bots that you can subscribe to. They will tweet regularly providing relevant information.

• twitRobot New!- Posts your product info and links in certain interval of time.
• @chucknorrisbot tweets a new Chuck Norris fact every 6 hours.
• @HistoryTweet tweets once daily about events that took place on this day in history
• @bastardoperator provides you with a daily dose of error messages, BOFH style - every day at 13:37 Swedish time.
• @Romeo__ and @Juliet__ the play is Twittered one line every fifteen minutes (more info & rest of cast)
• TTCupdates - Provides updates about service alerts & disruptions on the Toronto Transit Comission's subways, streetcars, and buses. 
• TwitScores - Provides Football (Soccer) results for the main football leagues, cups and international competitions
• BeatThat! - Get notifications of great deals on digital cameras, GPSs, TVs, etc. All deals from community members.
• Idea_Flurry - Latest thoughts on new products and business ideas from the Twittersphere
• HotSearches - What people are searching for today...
• NFLInjures - Posts NFL's latest injuries.
• PromoAppCodes - Announces when New iPhone apps are added to PromoAppCodes.com where developers give out promo codes to would be testers/reviewers. Promo Codes are generally given out on first come first serve basis. 
• Apress Daily Deal - notify every day when Apress posts their new Daily Deal (a discounted ebook for $10) by jschoolcraft @ The Queue
• TYPO3 Extension Repository Updates - notify about any TER Updates.
• Missingpeople - Gives you details of people in the UK who are reported missing at www.missingpeople.org.uk .
• RecallAware - Lets you know the moment a public safety health alert or product or food recall notice is available
• MovieScout - Lets you know when the latest movies hit DVD release, with a handy link to Amazon.
• Happy Anniversary - Never miss your twitter anniversary again. Hanniversary sends notifications when you're getting close to 500, 1000, 1500 etc. tweets count via direct message. Just follow to get started.
• gossipbot - Receive a random headline every 10 minutes from popular web sites including Digg, Reddit, Slashdot and many, many others. More here
• ScienceDaily - Latest in cool science research from ScienceDaily.com, by s3nt.com
• WeatherLisbon - Receive daily weather forecasts for Lisbon and other cities.
• EuroMillions - Receive the euromillions lottery results every friday night.
• Marvin_bot - Every day, about 12h30GMT+00, Marvin, the Paranoid Android(あんどろいど)(あんどろいど)(あんどろいど) from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, will quote himself.
• WindFunchal - Receive wind/kitesurfing alerts for the Madeira islands. Setup by Universidade da Madeira.
• FarkTweet - Unofficial, but categorized Fark.com tweetbots.
• TestCricket - regular score updates from international cricket matches around the world.
• Mensa_Fuwa - daily updates (11h05GMT+01) on the Student Cafeteria menu at Hochschule Furtwangen University, Germany
• La Planète Bleue - weekly playlist updates of La Planète Bleue, a radio show broadcasted by Couleur3 in Switzerland
• Dattebayo - Notifications on BitTorrent releases from popular anime fansub group Dattebayo.
• Missing Children Alerts - Missing children alerts.
• Amazon Kindle Availability - Get notified when the Amazon Kindle is in stock.
• SalaryScout - Random salary factoids. Are you paid enough?
• cpan_linked - Announcements of Perl modules uploaded to CPAN, with links to the module's page and change-log on http://search.cpan.org (moderately high traffic).
• celebdeathbeep - Announcements of celebrity deaths, from Celebrity Death Beeper
• The Buddha - Twice daily Buddha quotes.
• Mondkalender - Daily astrological moon calendar in German (around 9am). Moon phase, star sign and activity recommendations.
• New American Bible - Unofficial Gospel excerpt, Monday thru Friday, from the daily readings (Catholic).
• TPB Videos - One of the TPD twitter bot set.
• LeadVine - Make money giving referrals.
• Novels in Three Lines - Félix Fénéon/Luc Sante's work delivered twice daily.
• Oil Crash - Live oil price update
• Tahoe_Weather - National Weather Service Warnings/Watches/Advisories for the Lake Tahoe Area
• i80chains - Chain Control and Road Closure announcements for I-80 through the Sierra Nevada mountains.
• CNN Breaking News - Get instant updates on the latest breaking news from CNN.
• TV Guide - Announcements of what's new on TV tonight.
• Trending Tweets - As keyword trends emerge on Twitter, be altered right away. Excellent for major world events, like natural disasters, sports, politics, etc.
• Trending Diggs - Get instant notification from Digg's Hot Stories.
• Twitmastwee - Retweeting Christmas cheer from other Twitter users.
• tv_prog - Television programming for Chile and some parts of South America, more than 25 channels to follow. Check url and its followers.
• meteo_stgo - Weather report from meteochile.cl every 30 minutes and forecast 5 times a day for Santiago - Chile.
• meteo_valpo - Weather report from UTFSM every 30 minutes for Valparaiso - Chile
• sismos_chile - Earthquake report RSS from sismologia.cl for Chile
• Linux - The latest buzz from the Linux world.
• Wikipediabot - Random links to wikipedia pages every hour. (I make bots for any mediawiki-site, contact me @wkossen)
• Wikipediabot_NL - same for Dutch pages. (I make bots for any mediawiki-site, contact me @wkossen)
• Wikipediabot_DE - same for German pages. (I make bots for any mediawiki-site, contact me @wkossen)
• Wikipediabot_ES - same for Spanish pages. (I make bots for any mediawiki-site, contact me @wkossen)
• Dateinfo - link to the wikipedia page about today, every day. (I make bots for any mediawiki-site, contact me @wkossen)
• Dateinfo_NL - same for Dutch pages. (I make bots for any mediawiki-site, contact me @wkossen)
• Dateinfo_DE - same for German pages. (I make bots for any mediawiki-site, contact me @wkossen)
• Wiktionarybot - Random links from the famous Wiktionary every hour (I make bots, contact me @wkossen)
• WikiSourceBot - Random links to the WikiSource wiki every hour (I make bots, contact me @wkossen)
• UncyBot - Random links every hour to the uncyclopedia for a bit of fun (I make bots, contact me @wkossen)
• OncyBot - Random links to the dutch Oncyclopedia for a bit of fun (I make bots, contact me @wkossen)
• WikiSpeciesBot - Random species every hour (I make bots, contact me @wkossen)
• Geneabot - Random page each day from the Gene@Pedia wiki site. (I make bots for any mediawiki-site, contact me @wkossen)
• Random_nr - Random Integer every hour. Use it for your games, passwords, etc. (I make bots for any mediawiki-site, contact me @wkossen)
• theSUGGESTR - The latest ratings on local suggestion site theSUGGESTR.com.
• votd - sends a daily Bible verse each day (after midnight EST) -see the help page for more info.
• tweet4blood - sends the blood requests to donors. If you are a blood donor please follow. You can send the blood request at their website.
• tornadoalert - Posts current US tornado warnings.
• WellyRoadAlerts - Posts traffic alerts for Wellington, New Zealand
• OilCrash - Posts the latest barrel price for oil on the futures market
• Newest open freelance jobs - Open freelance jobs from all the web.
• Sat_NY - Notify&Alert when satellites(ISS,Hubble) fly over your city.more than world 35 cities available like Sat_Boston,Sat_London.(Google Map)
• MLB ScoreBot - sends scores of MLB games when they finish. Not associated with Major League Baseball.
• NBA ScoreBot - sends scores of NBA games when they finish. Not associated with the National Basketball Association.
• NHL ScoreBot - sends scores of NHL games when they finish. Not associated with the National Hockey League.
• NFL ScoreBot - sends scores of NFL games when they finish. Not associated with the National Football League.
• Office Workout - tweets an exercise you can do in the office every 30 minutes, to keep you fit while twittering.
• TodaysVerse - Bible tweets pulled from the ESV.org API
• HSIN Mensa - tweets the daily menu for the University of Applied Sciences in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany
• KUEI Mensa - tweets the daily menu for the University in Eichstaett, Bavaria, Germany

Game Bots

These users are automated bots that you can games with. They may operate by means of replies or direct messages.

• StupidBot - General Trivia Questions. Answer with Direct Messages, move up on the scoreboard.
• 420 game - 420 stoners game. Tweet at the bot when it's 4:20 in your local time zone or any other time zone for getting points. Local 4:20 AM tokes will get you most points. full instructions are available at http://420.druganddrop.com
• Anagram game bot - Compete with everyone and play anagram on twitter. Send your answers as replies within 30 minutes and score points.
• z0rk text adventure - Play a classic text adventure via twitter and SMS!
• TheTwitterTagProject - Tag, you're it! Tag one person and they will have to tag another...
• Twirl of Riches [beta] - A phrase guessing game in gameshow format similar to hangman. (By @TwtGames)
• Twivial - Play trivia on twitter!

Twitter Hacks

There is a sub-set of Twitter's 3rd-party applications that are built to make use of an extension to Twitter's syntax, dubbed "Twitter Hacks". These are generally bots that will pick up on something about the syntax of a Tweet and respond accordingly. This is different from services that simply track various keywords and display and aggregation of them (e.g. PoliTweets).

Keep an eye on http://del.icio.us/tag/twitterhack for more.

List of Twitter Hacks (incomplete)