How to auto-follow on Twitter
Image via Wikipedia
Ever since announcing that I’d basically follow anyone who’s followed me, I had to come up with a way to make this happen in a timely, efficient process. So here’s how I do it, if you want to use this bizarre workflow yourself.
- Aggregate all the “now following you” emails from Twitter in Mozilla Thunderbird.
- In Thunderbird, filter all these to a separate folder.
- On disk, open the Twitter folder in BBEdit.
- Extract all the lines containing “is now following”.
- De-dupe, then dump these into a text file.
- Strip out the Twitter usernames in parentheses.
- Copy and paste that list into a plain text file I call follow.txt.
- Run fu.php (a php script) to process those user names.
- Done!
fu.php is more or less the magic sauce along with BBEdit. I do this once every day or so to sync up new followers, and it works like a charm. fu.php I run in the Mac OS Terminal. This process looks complex, but in reality, it takes all of 2 minutes to do at most.
Here’s the source code:
<?php
// curl twitter follow script
set_time_limit(3600);
function follow($username)
{
$url = “http://username:password@twitter.com/friendships/create/$username.json”;
if (!$curld = curl_init()) {
echo “Could not initialize cURL session.\n”;
exit;
}
echo $url;
if (!$curld = curl_init()) {
echo “Could not initialize cURL session.\n”;
exit;
}
curl_setopt($curld, CURLOPT_GET, true);
curl_setopt($curld, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($curld, CURLOPT_HEADER, false);
curl_setopt($curld, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$output=curl_exec($curld);
//echo “Received data: \n\n$output\n\n”;
$pile=json_decode($output,true);
return $pile;
}
$handle = @fopen(“follow.txt”, “r”);
if ($handle) {
while (!feof($handle)) {
$users[] = fgets($handle, 4096);
}
fclose($handle);
}
foreach($users as $key=> $value){
$user=ereg_replace(“\n”,”",$value);
$result=follow($user);
print_r($result);
}
?>
Did you enjoy this blog post? If so, please subscribe right now!
Get this and other great articles from the source at www.ChristopherSPenn.com
View Comments
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
- Twitter Auto Follow Tools and Scripts - [...] christopherspenn.com – PHP script that auto-follows anyone that follows you. [...]
- 8 Tools, Scripts, or Apps to Follow and Unfollow on Twitter. | There's a Blog in my Soup! - [...] “How to Autofollow on Twitter” - PHP Script that auto-follows anyone that follows you. [...]
- Vox Populi: Q1 2010 | Christopher S. Penn's Awaken Your Superhero - [...] 8. How to autofollow on Twitter [...]
Leave a Reply
Subscribe for free!
Seems like a lot of work when you can just use Twitter Karma. http://dossy.org/twitter/karma/
This is interesting. I wonder how much of an API hit this takes. I bet you probably run this at night when you’re not going to be using Twitter that much anyway.
I don’t know enough about PHP and BBEdit yet to be able to implement this on Windows.
Twitter Karma blows up on me – too many followers.
Dan – it definitely takes an API hit. I’m working on a version that does NOT hit the API.
Chris — have you sorted out a version that doesn't hit the API? Not sure how you could do that. Would love to hear how you are doing this.
Chris — have you sorted out a version that doesn't hit the API? Not sure how you could do that. Would love to hear how you are doing this.
Chris — have you sorted out a version that doesn't hit the API? Not sure how you could do that. Would love to hear how you are doing this.
Chris — have you sorted out a version that doesn't hit the API? Not sure how you could do that. Would love to hear how you are doing this.
Haven't been able to do it without the API yet…
Haven't been able to do it without the API yet…
Haven't been able to do it without the API yet…
Haven't been able to do it without the API yet…
do you have a youtube video with the steps to do this?
do you have a youtube video with the steps to do this?
do you have a youtube video with the steps to do this?
do you have a youtube video with the steps to do this?
A better way of doing this would be to make the follow script check POP3 email, find any “.. is following you” emails and follow them. Put it in a cron at regular intervals (say, every 5 minutes) and you're done.
The friendships/create method is not subject to API rate limits, but there is a limit on the number of people you can follow in a day or hour or something. I think its 2000 per day at the moment.
A better way of doing this would be to make the follow script check POP3 email, find any “.. is following you” emails and follow them. Put it in a cron at regular intervals (say, every 5 minutes) and you're done.
The friendships/create method is not subject to API rate limits, but there is a limit on the number of people you can follow in a day or hour or something. I think its 2000 per day at the moment.
yea, that's I've been looking for! You know it was make me mad when I should using twitter and I should follow back anyone who follow me! You know it was waste the time. Thank for your information
yea, that's I've been looking for! You know it was make me mad when I should using twitter and I should follow back anyone who follow me! You know it was waste the time. Thank for your information
If you have a domain for email you can pipe the email to a php file to strip the line with the user name and presto call it from there on.
In cpanel hosting there is an option to filter emails which can be “piped” to a file.
Let the php do it's magic instantly. Hmmm…
If you have a domain for email you can pipe the email to a php file to strip the line with the user name and presto call it from there on.
In cpanel hosting there is an option to filter emails which can be “piped” to a file.
Let the php do it's magic instantly. Hmmm…
THX, this is very good and so much easier…. have a good day
THX, this is very good and so much easier…. have a good day
THX, this is very good and so much easier…. have a good day