4 ms·

Show HN: Whit - Access any kind of data through SMS

63 points by aaln 13y ago

Whit is an open source SMS service, which allows you to query CrunchBase, Wikipedia, and several other data APIs. Simply text 917-791-3098. Special commands include: P:'personName', C:'companyName', S:'stockTicker', W:'wikiSearch' ex. queries: 'p:bill gates', 'c:apple', 's:fb', 'w:philosophy'

aaln 13y ago
Whit is an open source SMS service, which allows you to query CrunchBase, Wikipedia, and several other data APIs. Simply text 917-791-3098. Special commands include: P:'personName', C:'companyName', S:'stockTicker', W:'wikiSearch' ex. queries: 'p:bill gates', 'c:apple', 's:fb', 'w:philosophy'
noahklein94 13y ago
This looks really promising. Will you ever add support for email?
- aaln 13y ago
  Accessing email through SMS is already widely popular. This is meant to scale for any kind of general data. However, we are adding a service that will email all of your queries to you at the end of the day.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
rpicard 13y ago
I use something similar that I created all the time. Mine connects to the DuckDuckGo API to pull the Zero-click info which is sourced from Wikipedia, Crunchbase, and a bunch of others. I never thought to open source it, but maybe I'll take a few minutes to do that soon.
- aaln 13y ago
  Using the DuckDuckGo api sounds really interesting because Google just shut off it's SMS service. Please send link when possible. Whit is meant for anyone to scale for access to any kind of data through sms.
  - rpicard 13y ago
    Sure thing. I'll probably re-do it in Flask because I looked at the code for the first time since last October and it's way more complicated than it needs to be. There are only a few lines of code, but there are a bunch of cruft files for the Perl framework I was using (Dancer). It'll only take a few minutes to port it though.
  - rpicard 13y ago
    I have the code up on GitHub, but the server I've been using to host the application myself isn't up right now. I have to debug some problem, but I don't think there is anything wrong with the code (just my deployment process). Here it is: https://github.com/rpicard/text-ddg https://github.com/rpicard/text-ddg
    - rpicard 13y ago
      Okay, it's working now. I just needed to bind Gunicorn to 0.0.0.0 so it would be externally visible.
yefim323 13y ago
Cool service. However, it's generally bad practice to reveal your API keys.
- aaln 13y ago
  Thanks! Just fixed.
  - moshberm 13y ago
    Whoops! Should've mentioned that. :-D
  - pudquick 13y ago
    Careful. All you've done is revise it. I could post a link or two that easily reveals it in your git repository revision history (6sus.. and 794e..). Instead, I'll post this link: https://help.github.com/articles/remove-sensitive-data https://help.github.com/articles/remove-sensitive-data
    - drivebyacct2 13y ago
      (useful link, but it's probably easier just to expire it on CrunchBase and generate a new one, if they didn't already do that)
  - bvdbijl 13y ago
    Please note that the keys will not be truly deleted, because they are still in the GIT history
invdevm 13y ago
An Intuit divison- txtweb already does that.
koutly 13y ago
Very interesting idea!, I found this where i could build my own free service on SMS http://txtweb.com http://txtweb.com
suhastech 13y ago
If you're in India, Intuit has an app ecosystem built around this idea: http://txtweb.com/ http://txtweb.com/
- suyash 13y ago
  Very interesting, this can be great for people who don't have data plan but can still get useful information by sms. Where does it say it's by Intuit, I don't see Intuit mentioned anywhere?
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - suhastech 13y ago
    It is http://www.nextbigwhat.com/intuit-launches-txtweb-sms-platform-for-mobile-app-developers-297/ http://www.nextbigwhat.com/intuit-launches-txtweb-sms-platfo... PS: I wrote an app on the ecosystem to manage your email http://suhastech.com/mail http://suhastech.com/mail
suyash 13y ago
What are you using for SMS? Twillio?
- aaln 13y ago
  Yep, we built whit at the techcrunch hackathon and twilio was a sponsor.
abava 13y ago
There is a conceptually similar stuff for Twitter: http://t411.linkstore.ru http://t411.linkstore.ru
leaninguys 13y ago
Is this an add for twilio rest api or what?!
mmahemoff 13y ago
How about supporting multiple queries from a single SMS, given that most users are probably capped on number of outgoing messages, but not incoming.
- aaln 13y ago
  That's a great feature we haven't considered implementing yet, we will focus on it asap. Thanks!
ekn 13y ago
This is similar to the service offered by http://55444.in http://55444.in in India.
elleferrer 13y ago
This reminds me of Google Talk Guru, the Google bot that lets you ask simple questions. It was an experimental service a few years ago. I'm not sure if it's still accepting invitations, but it still works for me in Google Talk or Gmail Chat: You can try to "friend" the bot by adding guru@googlelabs.com to your contact list. I sometimes still use it for a quick reference.
- aaln 13y ago
  That sounds really cool. Definitely will check it out. Thanks.
- guiguy 13y ago
  Which in turn reminds me of similar xmpp/jabber account: im@ddg.gg
gdonelli 13y ago
is this thought for developing countries?
- aaln 13y ago
  It is and will be scaled. Half the world still does not have 3g access through smartphones.
  - jckt 13y ago
    holy crap, I was writing a very similar app months ago, based on very similar premises, but I sorta gave up (actually got too busy as well, etc) once I read that actually the whole world is going 3g, even most developing countries are experiencing rapid 3g growth[1]. In any case, this looks very cool, seems better-thought-out than my original project. Good luck! [1]: http://mobithinking.com/mobile-marketing-tools/latest-mobile-stats/b#mobilebroadband http://mobithinking.com/mobile-marketing-tools/latest-mobile...
wicknicks 13y ago
Very cool! You might also want to add weather, amazon/yelp ratings for products/places, directions from place a to b and location based search (coffee near staples center, la). Would be super useful for people on the move without access to a data plan.
vxNsr 13y ago
Very cool, right now this is only in US? Do you have any plans to scale it here or are you only showing it as a proof-of-concept and will be shortly moving it to developing countries (where data service is less common)? Also, what's the point of the link at the end, if you're using SMS for this type of info it seems kinda unlikely that you have a phone that can handle data...
xur17 13y ago
Great work, it looks really neat! side note - I think your server's down, I'm not getting any response from it.
dror82 13y ago
Nice Idea. I'm sure you can spare the prefix letter with a little effort. You should try and make it as a plugin for existing IM app (e.g. Whatsapp)
- aaln 13y ago
  Agreed, the prefix letters are going to go.
darkmuck 13y ago
this would likely be extremely slow, but what about doing some form of TCP/IP via SMS, thereby using SMS as a "real" data connection
aaronsnoswell 13y ago
Just tried to use your service from Australia and got no response :(
- moshberm 13y ago
  Might be turned off at the moment.
- aaln 13y ago
  Sorry, service was turned off momentarily, feel free to try it again!
benpbenp 13y ago
Is this named after Whit Sunday (today this year, 19 May) or is that just a coincidence?
asmosoinio 13y ago
aalns [dead] comment: --- Whit is an open source SMS service, which allows you to query CrunchBase, Wikipedia, and several other data APIs. Simply text 917-791-3098. Special commands include: P:'personName', C:'companyName', S:'stockTicker', W:'wikiSearch' ex. queries: 'p:bill gates', 'c:apple', 's:fb', 'w:philosophy'

63 points by aaln 13y ago

aaln 13y ago

noahklein94 13y ago

This looks really promising. Will you ever add support for email?

aaln 13y ago
Accessing email through SMS is already widely popular. This is meant to scale for any kind of general data. However, we are adding a service that will email all of your queries to you at the end of the day.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

rpicard 13y ago

I use something similar that I created all the time. Mine connects to the DuckDuckGo API to pull the Zero-click info which is sourced from Wikipedia, Crunchbase, and a bunch of others. I never thought to open source it, but maybe I'll take a few minutes to do that soon.

aaln 13y ago
Using the DuckDuckGo api sounds really interesting because Google just shut off it's SMS service. Please send link when possible. Whit is meant for anyone to scale for access to any kind of data through sms.
- rpicard 13y ago
  Sure thing. I'll probably re-do it in Flask because I looked at the code for the first time since last October and it's way more complicated than it needs to be. There are only a few lines of code, but there are a bunch of cruft files for the Perl framework I was using (Dancer). It'll only take a few minutes to port it though.
- rpicard 13y ago
  I have the code up on GitHub, but the server I've been using to host the application myself isn't up right now. I have to debug some problem, but I don't think there is anything wrong with the code (just my deployment process). Here it is: https://github.com/rpicard/text-ddg https://github.com/rpicard/text-ddg
  - rpicard 13y ago
    Okay, it's working now. I just needed to bind Gunicorn to 0.0.0.0 so it would be externally visible.

yefim323 13y ago

Cool service. However, it's generally bad practice to reveal your API keys.

aaln 13y ago
Thanks! Just fixed.
- moshberm 13y ago
  Whoops! Should've mentioned that. :-D
- pudquick 13y ago
  Careful. All you've done is revise it. I could post a link or two that easily reveals it in your git repository revision history (6sus.. and 794e..). Instead, I'll post this link: https://help.github.com/articles/remove-sensitive-data https://help.github.com/articles/remove-sensitive-data
  - drivebyacct2 13y ago
    (useful link, but it's probably easier just to expire it on CrunchBase and generate a new one, if they didn't already do that)
- bvdbijl 13y ago
  Please note that the keys will not be truly deleted, because they are still in the GIT history

invdevm 13y ago

An Intuit divison- txtweb already does that.

koutly 13y ago

Very interesting idea!, I found this where i could build my own free service on SMS http://txtweb.com http://txtweb.com

suhastech 13y ago

If you're in India, Intuit has an app ecosystem built around this idea: http://txtweb.com/ http://txtweb.com/

suyash 13y ago
Very interesting, this can be great for people who don't have data plan but can still get useful information by sms. Where does it say it's by Intuit, I don't see Intuit mentioned anywhere?
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- suhastech 13y ago
  It is http://www.nextbigwhat.com/intuit-launches-txtweb-sms-platform-for-mobile-app-developers-297/ http://www.nextbigwhat.com/intuit-launches-txtweb-sms-platfo... PS: I wrote an app on the ecosystem to manage your email http://suhastech.com/mail http://suhastech.com/mail

suyash 13y ago

What are you using for SMS? Twillio?

aaln 13y ago
Yep, we built whit at the techcrunch hackathon and twilio was a sponsor.

abava 13y ago

There is a conceptually similar stuff for Twitter: http://t411.linkstore.ru http://t411.linkstore.ru

leaninguys 13y ago

Is this an add for twilio rest api or what?!

mmahemoff 13y ago

How about supporting multiple queries from a single SMS, given that most users are probably capped on number of outgoing messages, but not incoming.

aaln 13y ago
That's a great feature we haven't considered implementing yet, we will focus on it asap. Thanks!

ekn 13y ago

This is similar to the service offered by http://55444.in http://55444.in in India.

elleferrer 13y ago

This reminds me of Google Talk Guru, the Google bot that lets you ask simple questions. It was an experimental service a few years ago. I'm not sure if it's still accepting invitations, but it still works for me in Google Talk or Gmail Chat: You can try to "friend" the bot by adding guru@googlelabs.com to your contact list. I sometimes still use it for a quick reference.

aaln 13y ago
That sounds really cool. Definitely will check it out. Thanks.
guiguy 13y ago
Which in turn reminds me of similar xmpp/jabber account: im@ddg.gg

gdonelli 13y ago

is this thought for developing countries?

aaln 13y ago
It is and will be scaled. Half the world still does not have 3g access through smartphones.
- jckt 13y ago
  holy crap, I was writing a very similar app months ago, based on very similar premises, but I sorta gave up (actually got too busy as well, etc) once I read that actually the whole world is going 3g, even most developing countries are experiencing rapid 3g growth[1]. In any case, this looks very cool, seems better-thought-out than my original project. Good luck! [1]: http://mobithinking.com/mobile-marketing-tools/latest-mobile-stats/b#mobilebroadband http://mobithinking.com/mobile-marketing-tools/latest-mobile...

wicknicks 13y ago

Very cool! You might also want to add weather, amazon/yelp ratings for products/places, directions from place a to b and location based search (coffee near staples center, la). Would be super useful for people on the move without access to a data plan.

vxNsr 13y ago

Very cool, right now this is only in US? Do you have any plans to scale it here or are you only showing it as a proof-of-concept and will be shortly moving it to developing countries (where data service is less common)? Also, what's the point of the link at the end, if you're using SMS for this type of info it seems kinda unlikely that you have a phone that can handle data...

xur17 13y ago

Great work, it looks really neat! side note - I think your server's down, I'm not getting any response from it.

dror82 13y ago

Nice Idea. I'm sure you can spare the prefix letter with a little effort. You should try and make it as a plugin for existing IM app (e.g. Whatsapp)

aaln 13y ago
Agreed, the prefix letters are going to go.

darkmuck 13y ago

this would likely be extremely slow, but what about doing some form of TCP/IP via SMS, thereby using SMS as a "real" data connection

aaronsnoswell 13y ago

Just tried to use your service from Australia and got no response :(

moshberm 13y ago
Might be turned off at the moment.
aaln 13y ago
Sorry, service was turned off momentarily, feel free to try it again!

benpbenp 13y ago

Is this named after Whit Sunday (today this year, 19 May) or is that just a coincidence?

asmosoinio 13y ago

aalns [dead] comment: --- Whit is an open source SMS service, which allows you to query CrunchBase, Wikipedia, and several other data APIs. Simply text 917-791-3098. Special commands include: P:'personName', C:'companyName', S:'stockTicker', W:'wikiSearch' ex. queries: 'p:bill gates', 'c:apple', 's:fb', 'w:philosophy'