Twitter as the Ultimate Service Bus for Applications

I want to describe a proposal about using Twitter from applications. I guess this idea is not new, and that there are some real implementations in twittersphere. My point is to describe something simple and extensible.

Suppose you want to operate in a virtual marketplace. Actually, you are going to a website, enter your offer, wait for replies. An alternative method could be to use a Twitter account to send offer messages.

Something like this:

Every other application could read the feed from @ajmarket and then take action: response, make a counteroffer, publish it in a website, do market analysis, etc.

I propose a message format:

If you need to send more information, you can add links to data (possibly in JSON format, ok, it could be XML, but I prefer JSON):

Each application should define the valid verbs and arguments. The application that reads the messages (or write new ones) can be distributed, no need to have a entry point, in a URL. Twitter account is the more flexible entry point for such kind of applications.

Imagine you can build anything that involves many applications sending messages to possible many applications.

Even more: each application twitter account could be viewed as an agent. If you need to plan a trip, an “intelligent” application could be listen on Twitter, and take conversations with other Twitter agents to resolve your plan or problem.

The underlying application could run in Azure, Amazon, your own center. You can switch or support other message transport, Yammer instead of Twitter, or anything alike in the future.

Abstract: use Twitter as a pubsub channel, with a simple but flexible message format.

It should be something like this out there.

Keep tuned!

Angel “Java” Lopez
http://www.ajlopez.com
http://twitter.com/ajlopez

Winning a book in Twitter

Yesterday, I received a Tweet, saying that if you RT an specific message from @tobint you could win a book from Microsoft. Two winners would be selected: USA and International. Delivered via Amazon. I retwitted the message, and then…..  surprise! I won! (my entry was randomly selected). Tobin was working from Starbucks,  at his night, I guess (Redmond? another place?). Early in this morning, I received:

The book is CLR Via C# 3rd Edition (a new edition) by Jeffrey Richter

http://www.amazon.com/CLR-via-Pro-Developer-Jeffrey-Richter/dp/0735627045

Product description:

Dig deep and master the intricacies of the common language runtime (CLR) and the .NET Framework 4.0. Written by a highly regarded programming expert and consultant to the Microsoft® .NET team, this guide is ideal for developers building any kind of application-including Microsoft® ASP.NET, Windows® Forms, Microsoft® SQL Server®, Web services, and console applications. You’ll get hands-on instruction and extensive C# code samples to help you tackle the tough topics and develop high-performance applications.

Tobin Titus profile at Twitter:

You can visit his personal site Abstract Syntax

http://tobint.com/

Twitter is an astounding experience for me. I can share info, knowledge, links, jokes, moods, with interesting people, in my city, Buenos Aires, in my country, Argentine, or all around the world.

Thanks Tobin!

Angel “Java” Lopez
http://www.ajlopez.com
http://twitter.com/ahlopez

The beauty of Twitter: Example 1

I’m an avid user of Twitter. Usually, I use TweetDeck as client. Twitter is a simple idea (short messages, you can follow every user with public profile) that has changed the way we are interacting. In the software development arena, Twitter is a great complement (or complete replacement) to reading feeds. This is an example of its efectiveness.

Today, all begins with a tweet from @jfroma, a software developer (he is argentinian, like me:

I didn’t read all his messages, then, I was curious about his comment: Model View View Model pattern. I know José (@jfroma) has working examples of data binding in WPF over models retrieved via NHibernate, so I followed the link and began to read @michaellperry messages. It was my first contact with Michael:

Then, I found his presentation:

Session Detail: Data binding without INotifyPropertyChanged

asking @jfroma:

Now, having more context, I discovered Michael interests in his blog (note: Michael is display Twitter status at left):

http://adventuresinsoftware.com/blog

I discovered the open source library, base of Michael presentation:

http://updatecontrols.net

I started to tweet about this library, and others take notice, like @jyinglee:

 

All started with a simple message. That’s the power of Twitter. There is a “serendipity with help” from interesting people you follow and that follows you.

Angel “Java” Lopez
http://www.ajlopez.com
http://twitter.com/ajlopez