Internet messengers and social networks have become an integral part of modern digital life. We have in mind not only the interaction between individual users but also a variety of applications that exist in these applications. Typically, applications for social networks use the universal login system and rely on data from social networks. Also, such applications are likely to get more traction when they are inside of the big social network like Facebook. At the same time, less attention is paid to communication capabilities of social networks. In this paper, we target Twitter as a messaging system at the first hand. We describe the way information systems can use Twitter as a transport layer for own services. Our work introduces a programmable service called 411 for Twitter, which supports user-defined and application-specific commands through tweets.

1. Twitter as a Transport Layer
Platform
Dmitry Namiot Lomonosov Moscow State
University
dnamiot@gmail.com
AINL-IMSW FRUCT 2016

2. • Information systems in post-SMS time
• How to replace SMS as a main information
channel for mobile users
• Interactions between mobile users and
applications
• Internet services as data delivery channels for
mobile users
About

3. Contents
Introduction
SMS deployment
Non-SMS interactions
T411 model
Performance and Reliability

4. Introduction
• SMS is a traditional solution for
information services on mobile networks
• Built-in client, always on
• Easy to use
• Built-in billing
• Growing price
• Telecom based solution: how to get a
number?

5. SMS deployment
• SMS (MMS) request: service_number,
key_word, additional parameters
• Could be integrated with QR-codes
• We can send links
• Programming: SMPP and service libraries
on the top
• In the most cases: web programming
• Do it yourself tools: small penetration

6. Non-SMS channels
• Push-notifications: require application
• In the most cases, it is one-way interaction
• Social networks: easy to publish
information
• Social circles are problems
• Internet Messengers: potentially is
growing area, no clear winner at this
moment

7. Why Twitter?
• The roots are in SMS
• There are no social circles
• Rich API
• Web browser as a client
• Could be integrated with QR-codes
• Used in SMM

8. Can we borrow Twitter’s delivery
mechanism ?
• Tweet a program (Wolfram Alpha)
• IFTTT
• Aperator
• Twitter-based automation in IoT

9. T411 service
• DIY information service:
http://t411.linkstore.ru
• Programming processing for tweets like:
key_word additional parameters
• Account in Twitter plays a role of a service
number
• Request is a “mention” and/or direct
message

10. T411 architecture
• The typical requests:
• t stock_ticket E.g.:
t ORCL t YNDX
• w city_name
w msk w spb
• Geo-coding support
• Could be linked with QR-code
• Google App Engine

11. T411 architecture
• Keyword: requested
and reserved by the
user (author of
service)
• Author registers a
web hook: CGI script
for the response

12. Performance and Reliability
• Works on the top of Twitter API
• Response time for API (as per Twitter):
0.5 s
• Application server processing time:
0.4 – 0.5 s
• Reliability: 96% - 99%