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Twitter kills off SMS notifications and posting in most countries

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Re: Twitter kills off SMS notifications and posting in most countries

#91

Post by cmckn »

w1 wrote: post #79
seancoleman wrote: post #5

This reminds me of how I hacked twitter 10+ years ago to get free SMS delivery for a web app I built. Before Twilio, custom SMS notification delivery was hard and expensive. At the time, twitter allowed you to receive SMS notifications of tweets posted to a followed account. I created a private account and used twitter's API to post tweets to with the notification content I wanted to send. I then had "dummy" accounts…

Lol I may or may not currently be using a Twitter account and cron to broadcast any changes to my (non-static) home ip address, encrypted, so I can ssh into my workstation when I'm on vacation.

Cloudflare's API supports this for free; my Ubiquiti router updates my DNS records when/if something changes. But I love your hack :)

Re: Twitter kills off SMS notifications and posting in most countries

#92

Post by pkaye »

w1 wrote: post #82
thirtyseven wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are dynamic DNS services no longer a thing?

It looks like they are, thanks! This is just what I could hack together before I went on Christmas break a couple years back lol.

Some home routers even have a feature to keep your IP address updated with the DDNS service.

Re: Twitter kills off SMS notifications and posting in most countries

#93

Post by arkh »

schnevets wrote: post #58
djsumdog wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was originally a base for which people made all kinds of neat things like TwitPic. But then Twitter started integrating everything and competing with all the people who made them great; sometimes even suing them. I started using Twitter via SMS and before the age of modern smart phones (I was on my Palm Treo. The girl in the cube behind me just got an EDGE eyePhone) and for all my university friends, we used it as…

I have similar memories from college. It's weird to think that API Craze was an apex for hacking culture, but things haven't felt as exciting since. Or maybe I'm just reflecting on a younger period with nostalgia and have lost touch. Maybe those Instagram stickers and TikToks are equally as hackworthy as the things we spun up in the ol' days.

The experience of people getting their business fucked by platforms when they get traction mean that less people will try it again with those new ones.

Re: Twitter kills off SMS notifications and posting in most countries

#94

Post by w1 »

icedchai wrote: post #89
w1 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol I may or may not currently be using a Twitter account and cron to broadcast any changes to my (non-static) home ip address, encrypted, so I can ssh into my workstation when I'm on vacation.

Seems like a strange way to achieve this. Why not just have it send you an email? Or update a DNS record through an API?

I did first try to setup email, but I couldn't figure out how to do that without providing a static ip address. This was a "what can I make work in the two hours before we drive across the country" solution lol.

Re: Twitter kills off SMS notifications and posting in most countries

#95

Post by karatestomp »

AndrewGaspar wrote: post #44
heleninboodler wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For extremely generous definitions of "works." I am constantly amazed at how long (and how many attempts) it often takes to load a single tweet page. The SPA-initializing state is usually measured in minutes on my iphone regardless of what kind of connection I'm on, and the result is often that message that the page failed to load because my browser made too many attempts. I don't know how you can possibly do this ba…

I just loaded a link to a tweet in a private browsing window on my iPhone in some sub-second amount of time. So whatever issue you're running into is a bug, not intentional.

I get frequent failures for various reasons on multiple connection types, including Google Fiber. Referrer seems to be part of it. Mobile does seem much worse (WiFi or cell network) which makes it feel intentional.

Re: Twitter kills off SMS notifications and posting in most countries

#96

Post by jo6gwb »

yepguy wrote: post #37
gojomo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similarly ironic: that Twitter essentially now requires a phone number for continued use of their service – by freezing all new users' accounts, soon after minor activity, until a phone number is provided. But, they won't let you use that phone endpoint for reading/posting.

That infuriated me last year when I finally tried to create a Twitter account. During registration I was given a choice between providing an email address or a phone number. I provided an email address, only to immediately have my account locked until I provided a phone number. Well, I wouldn't have given my email address if I knew a phone number was required anyway! It wouldn't even let me visit my account settings…

I had a similar experience. In my case they allowed my account to be opened without a phone number as I requested that they delete the account because I didn't want to provide my phone number. I deleted my account soon afterward anyway.

Re: Twitter kills off SMS notifications and posting in most countries

#97

Post by milquetoastaf »

schnevets wrote: post #58
djsumdog wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was originally a base for which people made all kinds of neat things like TwitPic. But then Twitter started integrating everything and competing with all the people who made them great; sometimes even suing them. I started using Twitter via SMS and before the age of modern smart phones (I was on my Palm Treo. The girl in the cube behind me just got an EDGE eyePhone) and for all my university friends, we used it as…

I have similar memories from college. It's weird to think that API Craze was an apex for hacking culture, but things haven't felt as exciting since. Or maybe I'm just reflecting on a younger period with nostalgia and have lost touch. Maybe those Instagram stickers and TikToks are equally as hackworthy as the things we spun up in the ol' days.

I think a key difference is the Twitter API externalized things (people building on top, creating an ecosystem) whereas IG/TikTok stickers are inclusive and focused on people building within

Re: Twitter kills off SMS notifications and posting in most countries

#98

Post by traden210 »

amatecha wrote: post #83
thirtyseven wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are dynamic DNS services no longer a thing?

Yep, free dynamic DNS still exists, for example NoIP https://www.noip.com/ However, you have to refresh it each month by filling out a "I'm still using it" web form they email you. So, you can't just set it & forget it.

I use Namecheap, but other providers offer it as well: free dyndns service with a domain - no monthly checkin required.

Re: Twitter kills off SMS notifications and posting in most countries

#100

Post by samatman »

xxpor wrote: post #33
zymhan wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can follow people. But if the people you follow "like" a political post, then you might see that. You can also tell Twitter to "Show you less" of any kind of post.

Or just turn off the feature entirely in settings.

I used to think that worked, and at some point it (maybe) did. There were/are also magic strings you can mute.

I think currently your only hope is to use the "latest tweets" timeline, complete with periodically resetting your preference when Twitter decides to change it for you, which is abusive behavior on their part.

I prefer the chrono timeline and no "likes are stochastic retweets" nonsense, so that's a happy convergence for me. Who knows how long it'll last; Twitter seems to despise their users and I'm quite convinced no one in power at the company actually uses the platform.

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