How can I send Twitter a text, but Twitter won’t send me one?

When I first encountered Twitter I thought it was great that I could send Twitter a text. It was easy, too, I just had to send a text message to 40404 (since I live in the United States). If I wanted to send someone a direct message- that only they can see- I could text it to the same number, but start it with a “d” and then the friend’s Twitter name. No problem.

Soon I wondered why Twitter wouldn’t send me a text when someone was trying to reach me. I could sign up for Twitter to send me notice of every one of my friend’s updates, but when I am away from my computer I really just want to know if someone is talking to (or about) me- I just want Twitter to send me those messages.

I can’t speak for Twitter, but I thought it was a significant gap in the service. It merely made sense to me that Twitter would send me a text message every time someone mentioned me. Because of this limitation, I wrote a Twitter app called, FeedTwit. This app allows Twitter to send you messages when ever someone mentions you, replies to you, or speaks to you.

It’s really simple how this works- all you have to do is follow @FeedTwit on Twiiter then the Twitter app will send you a direct message with a unique password. Take this password to the FeedTwit homepage and login with your Twitter username and the password FeedTwit sent you. Once you have logged in, tell FeedTwit what you want Twitter to send you.

For Twitter to send you your messages by text, start by following FeedTwit on Twitter.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 at 9:03 pm and is filed under Twitter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “How can I send Twitter a text, but Twitter won’t send me one?”

  1. imsmarturdumb Says:
    December 18th, 2009 at 7:54 pm

    dude… you can get updates from twitter.
    just go to your following list and click the little phone icon next to the people you want to get updates from.

    and if you go to settings and click mobile you can set when to turn off your update thingy like so it doesnt bug you when your sleeping.

  2. the zim Says:
    December 18th, 2009 at 8:38 pm

    but if you rely only on that, if someone you haven’t selected to receive messages from sends an @ message to you, you won’t get it. Are you REALLY going to tell twitter you want text updates from EVERYONE you follow?

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