Search Twitter with your mobile phone

April 22nd, 2008
By Noah (observations, resources, technology, tips)

I’ve been playing around with the publisher tools for 4INFO.net and have put together a convenient way to search the “twit-o-sphere” for a keyword via your cell phone using a text message.

4INFO is a text messaging information service that lets you request and subscribe to a wide range of information from various publishers via your cell phone. I’ve signed up as a publisher and have reserved the keyword: TSCAN.

Here’s how it works:

Send an SMS/text message to 44636 in this format: TSCAN <keyword>

For example, if I sent a text message to 44636 with the message:

TSCAN obama

I would get back a short menu of the most recent “tweets” with the name “obama” in them. I could then reply to that message with the corresponding menu number to see the entire “tweet.” Seem confusing? Give it a try! It really works.

I have no idea if this is useful to anyone, but just thought it was a fun way to learn about 4INFO’s publisher services.

2 Responses

Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Israel Kloss

And since I’m tracking you with keyword information trapping technology (the word 4info), I just saw this. Have you tried CellAlert.net? If not, why don’t you register and use it to track anything you want! Like “Noah Coffey”, perhaps? We have people currently using it to track everything from foreclosures on craigslist, competitor analysis, sales leads on craigslist, and laptop specials worldwide to their own name (egosurfing) to emergency alerts, non-profit grant announcements, and on and on — all direct to their cell phones.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Kirsten

That is very cool! We love it when people find clever ways to use 4INFO text messaging services. Nice work.