Archive for August, 2010

IM usage stats: the decline of AIM

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

Like many early IM users, I was a heavy user of AIM for a very long time. (I also had a 6 digit ICQ number, but the lack of friends on the network led to me abandoning it). The first IM platform I implemented on what eventually became the IM support in Tropo was AIM. AIM holds a special place in my heart.

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New Guidelines for Naming Tropo Web API Language Libraries (ruby, PHP, python, C#)

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

UPDATE, Sept 3, 2010:After some discussion, the consensus is to make the language library naming even a bit easier for developers and move the module names from “tropo-webapi” to simply “tropo”. The table below has been updated to show the change.


With the availability of the Tropo Web API, it’s been great to see the development of Tropo libraries for various programming languages, which let developers easily and quickly build Tropo apps for voice and SMS.  We now have Tropo Web API libraries available for Ruby, PHP, Python and C#: (more…)

Tropo Scripting Guide updated X 2 – now with PHP examples

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

As promised, the Scripting Guide now includes PHP examples!  These go along with the original JavaScript examples and the recently added Ruby examples.   Now when you go take a look at each chapter, you’ll see:

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Tropo is Easy!

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010
Tropo Tinkerstorm

Amber and Aaron are on the bottom left of this photo.

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OpenGov hackathon wrapup (and the winners!)

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

Saturday and Sunday, a bunch of developers wrapped up Seattle Geek Week by participating in an hackathon to build apps with government APIs and data. Here’s what you missed…

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Seattle 911 scanner on Tropo for the hackathon

Sunday, August 22nd, 2010

For the Gnomedex hackathon we sponsored this weekend, I spent most of my time helping out teams who were building things using Tropo. But mid-morning today, inspiration struck for my own project. It’s not huge, so I was able to hack it together quickly and it’s a great sample app.

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Tropo’s Open Government Tinkerstorm Halfway Point

Sunday, August 22nd, 2010

Tinkerstorm beginsApproximately 20 passionate programmers participated in Tropo and Socrata‘s open government 24-hour Tinkerstorm (or Hack-a-thon) in conjunction with Chris Pirillo‘s GnomeDex 2010.  We are currently at the half-way point of the competition.  Bill Schrier (Seattle’s CTO) stopped by to check on the status of the projects and provide additional inspiration.  Max Ogden and Reid Beels flew in from Portland, Oregon and Mark Silverberg flew in from Washington, DC just to participate in our Tinkerstorm!

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Build an Open Government app at Gnomedex and win prizes

Friday, August 20th, 2010

This weekend a number of the Tropo crew have descended upon Seattle for Gnomedex and Seattle Geek Week. We’re hosting the final geek week event, Gnomedex’s Tinkerstorm: an open government themed hackathon.

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Tropo Scripting Guide updated – now with Ruby samples

Monday, August 16th, 2010

In a blatant show of favoritism (stemming from our VP of Innovation Jason Goecke, a true Rubyist if there ever was one), we have now included Ruby code examples in the Tropo Scripting Guide.

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Decisions For Heroes uses Tropo to improve rescue team communications

Friday, August 13th, 2010

Decisions for Heroes provides a web-based application that helps organize and analyze rescue operations and training exercises. From team and individual status reports, training updates, and communication to rescuers, Decisions for Heroes (D4H) helps save lives by improving the response time and response quality of rescue organizations.

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