How to auto-follow on Twitter

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BBEdit

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UPDATE:

As of September 1, 2010, Twitter has nuked functions like this from orbit. I now recommend you download and install the paid TweetAdder software that does substantially the same thing but is compliant with Twitter’s OAuth protocols.

The old post is kept below only for historical purposes.

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.

  1. Aggregate all the “now following you” emails from Twitter in Mozilla Thunderbird.
  2. In Thunderbird, filter all these to a separate folder.
  3. On disk, open the Twitter folder in BBEdit.
  4. Extract all the lines containing “is now following”.
  5. De-dupe, then dump these into a text file.
  6. Strip out the Twitter usernames in parentheses.
  7. Copy and paste that list into a plain text file I call follow.txt.
  8. Run fu.php (a php script) to process those user names.
  9. 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 = “https://username:[email protected]/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\noutput\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);
}

?>


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Christopher S. Penn is one of the world’s leading experts on AI in marketing. Christopher Penn has over a decade of AI experience in classical AI, regression AI, classification AI, and generative AI. Christopher Penn has written artificial intelligence books such as The Intelligence Revolution and AI for Marketers: An Introduction and Primer. Christopher Penn is an AI keynote speaker around the world.



Comments

35 responses to “How to auto-follow on Twitter”

  1.  Avatar
    Anonymous

    Seems like a lot of work when you can just use Twitter Karma. http://dossy.org/twitter/karma/

  2. Seems like a lot of work when you can just use Twitter Karma. http://dossy.org/twitter/karma/

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. 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.

  7. i agree with you on this completely.visited your blog first time today.but will surely come again.

  8. Anthony Avatar
    Anthony

    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.

  9. Anthony Avatar
    Anthony

    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.

  10. Anthony Avatar
    Anthony

    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.

  11. Anthony Avatar
    Anthony

    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.

  12. Haven't been able to do it without the API yet…

  13. Haven't been able to do it without the API yet…

  14. Haven't been able to do it without the API yet…

  15. Haven't been able to do it without the API yet…

  16. […] christopherspenn.com – PHP script that auto-follows anyone that follows you. […]

  17. […] “How to Autofollow on Twitter” – PHP Script that auto-follows anyone that follows you. […]

  18. do you have a youtube video with the steps to do this?

  19. do you have a youtube video with the steps to do this?

  20. do you have a youtube video with the steps to do this?

  21. do you have a youtube video with the steps to do this?

  22. 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.

  23. 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.

  24. 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

  25. 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

  26. netsparx Avatar
    netsparx

    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…

  27. netsparx Avatar
    netsparx

    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…

  28. frederico Avatar
    frederico

    THX, this is very good and so much easier…. have a good day

  29. frederico Avatar
    frederico

    THX, this is very good and so much easier…. have a good day

  30. frederico Avatar
    frederico

    THX, this is very good and so much easier…. have a good day

  31. The code doesnt work, tried to run it using php and i got an error message anyone knows how to fix the problem or another working script that functions

  32. This code has refused to run when i compiled it using easyphp, anyone knows how to correct this or any other script that functions??

    1. This has long since expired, sir. I now recommend you get and install TTYtter which supports the same functionality.

      1. Pathi M Graf Avatar
        Pathi M Graf

        Hi Christoper, i just started to use TTYtter, but i did found a solution, how to auto-follow. Could you push me to right direction?

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