Tweetbots



 [|Twitter]  API 
 * About: [|Tweetbots] , Copyright © 2009 Handcrafted, LLC 

**  [|Internet Bots], or "bots" (short for "robot"), are programs that operate as an agent for a user or another program, or simulate a human activity. Bots have been around for decades and have often carried a negative reputation amongst "casual" internet users. When people think of bots they often think of "spam bots" or " [|Chatterbots] ," which were created to spread spam and other unwanted messages across chat rooms and forums, as well as attempt to extract personal information from users. With the rise of social networking sites, programmers have developed bots that rely on an [|application programming interface] , and can interact with services such as [|Twitter]  to enhance user experiences, or automate otherwise mundane activities. Throughout this section, we will take a look at the three bots offered by <span style="line-height: normal; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">[|Tweetbots] <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> and their functions in education. The specific focus will be on the DM-Tweet bot and its use as a communication tool, as well as an aggregator for important links, announcements, etc. <span style="line-height: normal; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> __DM-Tweet__: <span style="font-weight: normal; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">DM-Tweet stands for "direct message tweet." The DM-Tweet bot allows a user to create a Twitter account, designate it as a bot, and assign "DM-Tweet Sources." A DM-Tweet Source is the name given to any user who has permission to use the bot. Once a user is designated as a DM-Tweet Source, any direct message sent by that user to the bot will be tweeted from the bot account. This allows a specific group or social network to use one Twitter account without having to individually login to that account. This is especially useful in educational environments. __Auto-Follow__: <span style="font-size: 90%; font-weight: normal; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Auto-Follow is literal in its definition. By checking the Auto-Follow option in the bot settings, any user that "follows" the bot will be automatically followed back. This is a feature that would more often than not be utilized by users who do not discriminate, so to speak, against who follows them. Users who welcome any and all followers would find the auto-follow bot useful, as it would keep them from checking his/her list for new followers and manually following them. __Feed-Tweet__: <span style="font-size: 90%; font-weight: normal; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Feed-Tweet bot allows a user to take an RSS feed and make it a source of tweets for the bot. For example, a user can enter the RSS feed for his/her blog and any new entries into the blog will be tweeted. The Feed-Tweet bot will create individual tweets for all blog posts. Its uses in educational environments range from students/educators tweeting their blog posts for a group, or for students/educators to follow the blogs of others via the Twitter platform.
 * Overview: **
 * Featured Bots:

****Educational Uses:**

<span style="font-weight: normal; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">As stated earlier, the two bot features with the most uses in education are the DM-Tweet bot and the Feed-Tweet bot. As information sharing on the internet expands, effective ways of organizing and aggregating information will become just as important as the information itself. The Feed-Tweet bot effectively reduces redundancy in that users with a blog of interest can use Feed-Tweet to tweet each blog entry, which gives followers a "shortcut" to the blog posts without having to check in on the blog site or an RSS reader everyday. Perhaps the most useful Tweetbot for education is the DM-Tweet bot. By allowing multiple users to tweet from the same account, a new method of collecting information is inevitably created through the account timeline. Below is an example of a Twitter timeline which, when using DM-Tweet, acts as an aggregator of useful information for the group. (See Illustration) <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">



When new social technologies emerge, ways to utilize those technologies emerge with them. One of the benefits of DM-Tweet is that mobile Twitter users on cell phones, Blackberries, and iPhones can also send direct messages to the bot "on the go." To a degree, a DM-Tweet bot is a micro social network. It acts as a way to distribute information to a learning community, and can be done so in a mobile environment through the use of [|UberTwitter], [|Tweetdeck] , or [|Twitter] via a mobile browser. This further opens up the channels of communication. ** <span style="font-size: 12.6px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"> Those who wish to use Tweetbots as a tool for real-time <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.6px; line-height: 21px; font-weight: normal;">[|backchannel] <span style="font-size: 12.6px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"> conversation will be disappointed. Tweetbots send requests to the Twitter servers at regular intervals. Therefore, the DM-Tweets are not instantaneous. While experimenting with the [|@Cadre12] DM-Tweet bot, it was observed that the time it takes for a direct message to be tweeted by the bot took anywhere between 30 seconds and 40 mins. Furthermore, unless a user adds his or her username to the direct message, there is no way of telling who it is coming from, since it is simply tweeted under the bot name. This is why it is suggested as an aggregator, rather than a tool for real-time conversation.
 * "Classroom" uses for this technology vary. It allows instructors as well as students to contribute useful information to a class' "online library" through the use of links and/or announcements regarding deadlines or events. One of the main benefits to using a DM-Tweet bot as opposed to a [|hashtag] is that the "owner" of the bot can make the bot's Twitter feed private. A normal Twitter hashtag will be shown in a public search unless each individual user makes his/her tweets private. Therefore, a DM-Tweet bot (set to private) can contain pertinent class information, without making that information available to those outside of the class/network.
 * Problems/Shortcomings:

Contact: <span style="font-size: 12.6px; line-height: 21px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"> For more information regarding Tweetbots, feel free to contact [|@JMel211] of Pepperdine University MALT Cadre 12, or contribute to the page as you see fit.

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