Twitter + Textmarks = TweetMarks

Tweet every text. Text every tweet. Twitter and SMS users connect.

Textmarks keyword = Twitter hashtag

The challenge was to get the most possible users contributing to a communication system from my most possible devices while allowing all users to feel like they are contributing to the same thing and providing an added bonus for smartphone users. The solution is TweetMarks.

TweetMarks is a marriage of regular ol’ SMS and Twitter. It includes the most possible users while adding some cool functionality for smartphone users. Users who opt for the SMS version will receive tweets, and users who prefer the custom Twitter client will receive the text messages sent from the short code. Users are also free to use their preferred Twitter client. However the advantage of using the Twitter client, of course, is the ability to follow people who are at the event but you didn’t already know. It’s a web-based app, so users don’t have to worry about installing anything to their devices when they arrive at a museum, conference, bar, or club and find out there’s a cool communication tool available that they don’t have.

To achieve this I just added functionality to my Twitter client to send tweets as SMS through Textmarks. Likewise, SMS messages are tweeted. Hopefully this includes mostly everyone at an event who wishes to participate in a group communication, and users can use their preferred method of messaging. I’m really excited about this. There are limitless possibilities for this application not only at bars and clubs as originally envisioned, but any large space where people who don’t know each other gather.

On Wednesday, April 8 we will implement this system for singles night at Hugs in Brooklyn. We’re going to project all these messages onto a big screen. The system we customized for them looks great! Have a look. New messages slide in on the projection screen thanks to Scriptaculous. I didn’t do device detection on this one so you can check it out on the web or your mobile device. TweetMarks will also be the engine that drives BarTalk, our 1′ 2′ 10′ project.

Messaging client:
publk.com/hugs

Projection:
publk.com/hugs/projection