This week I'm in Chicago for PHP|Tek 2008. I'll have to post separately regarding it, but I'm having quite a lot of fun.
Unfortunately, the Internet, WiFi, and Twitter are all seeming to have serious issues with handling this much traffic in the same place. Twitter was up and down, having "Techincal Issues." One of the routers had bad firmware, and was having trouble keeping up with it. On top of it all, the Internet connection itself was having some minor issues.
Twitter was the most minor, and easiest to gripe at. "Damn you Twitter! Just invest some more and not suck as hard" was heard way too many times.
Well, here I am - mere ol' me, Graham Christensen, looking to save the day.
I'm planning on writing a replication of Twitter. No, not full-scale all the users, but a small select few from #phpc and surrounding areas.
Stablr, the proposed name, will be the main gateway for it's users. People will post to Stablr, which will then (when it can) forward it to Twitter. If a Stablr users posts to Twitter directly, the message will be retrieved and replicated on Stablr. Responses to posts, direct messages, and tweets from friends of Stablr users would also be replicated.
The advantage to this, is being able to use Twitter in nearly all of its glory. (The only missing part, is the down-time.)
This would offer a self-contained group if desired, but can also integrate nicely into the fuller scale of things.
Any takers? Anyone want to help? Suggestions? Funding? Etc. Give me things.
I am game.
I am glad you liked the name "Stablr", it really does make sense ;-)
This seems like an awesome project!
Just so you don't forget what we talked about: web service API that uses a push model, which could replace or supplement the existing pull API and an application infrastructure similar to Facebook where Twitter integration in Stablr could actually be an application instead of being part of the core and other applications could be added on to supplement functionality in Stablr so that the core is very lightweight, but still able to be feature-rich for your demanding users. ;)
Sign me up.
You going to use the Zend Framework?
Interesting concept. I will follow this project closely.
Btw, whats your twitter id?
Awesome, count me in.
Thats a nice idea indeed. I have developed a localized version of twitter-look-alike with XMPP bots and collected almost every resources to make bots for Yahoo and MSN.
You can count me in in your journey, I hope I can help advancing your idea.
I think identi.ca already does what you plan to do. perhaps you can just enhance it?