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Our Twitter application were featured on a Singapore local daily, MyPaper, yesterday.

Tweet easy, thanks to free S’pore applications

MyPaper, 16 Apr 2009

CHEN JINGTING

TWITTER fans here have created applications for fellow tweeting Singaporeans to “tweet” conveniently and securely – for free. These third-party applications are mainly for Twitter users who update their profiles via SMS. Tweet.sg, started by software engineer Jym Cheong about three months ago, has more than 700 users.

A user only has to send his password and message to a designated number. A program will then copy the SMS message onto his Twitter account online. “Tweet.sg updates the account on behalf of the user,” said Mr Cheong, who designed the program. The 33-year-old told my paper that he is not making money from tweet.sg. If a user has free SMS as part of his mobile-phone plan, he does not need to pay a cent when he uses tweet.sg, he said.

If the user exceeds his free SMS limit, charges are paid to the telecommunication companies, not tweet.sg.
So why did he start tweet.sg? To save money for local Twitter users, he said. Initially, users needed to send their SMSes to a number in the United Kingdom, which can incur expensive international SMS charges. A similar Singapore-based site, Widgeo.us, which provides web technology-based solutions, introduced its free Twitter application last October. Currently, nearly 700 fans are using the application. It stores and encrypts users’ passwords in its system to protect their privacy and prevent misuse of information, said co-founder Chua U-Zyn, 26. Tweet.sg also has its own security measures.

Mr Cheong said: “Once the SMS reaches the system, it is not stored and is sent to Twitter. Whether the attempt is successful or not, the system would delete the SMS so that no trace of it is left.” Mr Chua hopes that Widgeo.us would be able to access users’ online account information without requiring their login information in the future. “Then they don’t have to give us their passwords, which means greater security and user privacy.”

jtchen@sph.com.sg

Do check out our just-improved Twitter application.

Widgeous is currently undergoing some changes and you shall hear from us soon on our new updates!

Thanks for all your support!

After a long absence and many bugs. We’ve just reworked the Twitter Bridge app that we had. Now, it’s even easier to use it because there’s NO NEED for a widgeous account.

If you want to:-

Use twitter on your Singapore mobile phone:-

1. Send “twitter register” to 92721192

2. You will receive a reply asking you for your TWITTER EMAIL
E.g. If your email is “xyz@wer.com” you just send a reply “xyz@wer.com” to 92721192

3. The system will then ask you for your TWITTER PASSWORD. Just like in step (2), reply with your twitter password.

4. Once that’s done, you can send updates by texting

“twitter update I tweeted this from my mobile!”

Use twitter on MSN

1. add the widgeous bot (w@widgeo.us) to your contact list.

2. say to the bot, “twitter register”

3. Just like in the mobile phone registration, he will ask you for your twitter email and password.

4. If all goes well, you can now send twitter updates by messaging to the bot,

“twitter update I tweeted this from MSN”

Notes

1. We store your twitter password so that you won’t have to retype your twitter keys over and over again. Don’t worry, we keep your twitter details safe.

2. If you want to associate any of your devices(phone/msn) with another twitter account, simply run the “twitter register” command again.

You know how you could just send a twitter update to +447624801423 ? If you were in Singapore, wouldn’t it be good if you could send that update to a local number instead? Well now you can.

First, our number is +6592721192

By simply registering for the app using the

“twitter register”
command you can register for our twitter app. Once you’ve done that, you can simply use

“twitter update Hi! This is a twitter update”
to send updates to your twitter account!

In fact, we’ll also send your twitter account feed to your default channel as well! If you’ve set it to your mobile phone, you’ll get updates on your phone!

WARNING: if you have a lot of followers follow a lot of people who tweet a lot, you’re advised to set your default channel to another channel because the app currently doesn’t follow your twitter notifications list(there’s no API for us to use) so we’re basically sending all updates that appear in your twitter.com/home page to you.

Setting your default channel to your MSN or Widgeous Channel makes it function like an IM notification client.

If at any point in time, you think you want to stop receiving updates, you can just use the command “twitter unregister” to stop receiving updates.

Oh, one last thing. Our system only sends text messages to Singapore numbers only. If you’re outside of Singapore, you can still send commands via text messages but you will not receive any updates.

Another limitation includes not supporting the twitter direct message. I’ll do this one up soon, and update everyone when I’ve plugged this in.

If you have any suggestions for improvement, just drop me an email or leave a comment.

First up. If you haven’t checked out gothere.sg to get your Singapore street directions, you should!

Now we’ve created an app that allows you to get directions using the command:-

_gothere bus from:<from_address> to:<to_address>

For instance, if you wanted to get bus directions from Vivocity to Takashimaya you would type in

_gothere bus from:vivocity to: takashimaya

and what you’ll get back is

———————

From: VivoCity, 1 Harbourfront Walk, Singapore 098585
To: Ngee Ann City, 391 Orchard Road, Singapore 238872

[EstTime:33 min] [EstCost:$1.09]

Step 1: Walk to Opposite Vivocity, Telok Blangah Road (14119). - 1 min
Step 2: Take Bus 143 - 16 stops to Opposite Ngee Ann City, Orchard Turn (09011). - 30 min
Step 3: Walk to Ngee Ann City. - 1 min

(Source:GoThere.sg)
Powered by Widgeous

———————

If you wanted to get Bus+Train directions, you simply have to replace “bus” with “busntrain”

and if you can’t remember the list of commands, you just have to type “_gothere help”.

It’s finally here!

We said we wanted a place just for developers, and here it is!

I present to you… DevNet. Short for the Widgeous Developer Network, it’s going to be a one-stop place for all your developer resources. It has the feeds from the forum as well as from our blog(those marked for developers) all there.

And while I’m at it, don’t forget to check out our Hackathon! It lasts all the way till end of September and the best app gets featured and also wins 250 bucks(Ok, we realise that’s not much but we’re poor right now..heh).

If you’re wondering where you start, you can head over to our Getting Started Guide.

We look forward to receiving your comments either here or in our forum.