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Show HN: Whit - Access any kind of data through SMS (github.com)

63 points by aaln ↗ HN
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'

45 comments

[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 117 ms ] thread
[dead] aaln
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
This looks really promising. Will you ever add support for email?
aaln
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]
(comment deleted)
rpicard
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
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
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
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

rpicard
Okay, it's working now. I just needed to bind Gunicorn to 0.0.0.0 so it would be externally visible.
yefim323
Cool service. However, it's generally bad practice to reveal your API keys.
aaln
Thanks! Just fixed.
moshberm
Whoops! Should've mentioned that. :-D
pudquick
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

drivebyacct2
(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
Please note that the keys will not be truly deleted, because they are still in the GIT history
[dead] invdevm
An Intuit divison- txtweb already does that.
[dead] koutly
Very interesting idea!, I found this where i could build my own free service on SMS http://txtweb.com
suhastech
If you're in India, Intuit has an app ecosystem built around this idea: http://txtweb.com/
suyash
What are you using for SMS? Twillio?
aaln
Yep, we built whit at the techcrunch hackathon and twilio was a sponsor.
[dead] leaninguys
Is this an add for twilio rest api or what?!
mmahemoff
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
That's a great feature we haven't considered implementing yet, we will focus on it asap. Thanks!
elleferrer
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
That sounds really cool. Definitely will check it out. Thanks.
guiguy
Which in turn reminds me of similar xmpp/jabber account: im@ddg.gg
gdonelli
is this thought for developing countries?
aaln
It is and will be scaled. Half the world still does not have 3g access through smartphones.
jckt
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...

wicknicks
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
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...

dror82
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
Agreed, the prefix letters are going to go.
darkmuck
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
Just tried to use your service from Australia and got no response :(
moshberm
Might be turned off at the moment.
aaln
Sorry, service was turned off momentarily, feel free to try it again!
benpbenp
Is this named after Whit Sunday (today this year, 19 May) or is that just a coincidence?
xur17
Great work, it looks really neat!

side note - I think your server's down, I'm not getting any response from it.

asmosoinio
aalns [dead] comment:

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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'