Desire Bot: A Twitter Bot That Re-Posts What the World Wants
February 6, 2015 6:55 AM Subscribe
Desire Bot: A Twitter Bot That Re-Posts What the World Wants
This is a Twitter bot that re-posts tweets it finds beginning with the phrase "I just want..." It then pulls the nouns from the message, and uses those words to search Flickr for a matching image.
This is my first ever Twitter bot, and I'm incredibly excited to see the thing up and running. I'm still fiddling with the code, to try to increase the accuracy... but I'm happy with the results so far.
Not only was this a super fun project to work on, I learned a tremendous amount along the way. I got the opportunity to work with the command line more, with GitHub more, and with Heroku for the first time. And I discovered the awesomeness that is Wordnik!
I have a more detailed write-up about the mechanics on my blog.
I owe a tremendous amount to Sarah Kuehnle, whose posts were an invaluable guide for this first-timer.
This is a Twitter bot that re-posts tweets it finds beginning with the phrase "I just want..." It then pulls the nouns from the message, and uses those words to search Flickr for a matching image.
This is my first ever Twitter bot, and I'm incredibly excited to see the thing up and running. I'm still fiddling with the code, to try to increase the accuracy... but I'm happy with the results so far.
Not only was this a super fun project to work on, I learned a tremendous amount along the way. I got the opportunity to work with the command line more, with GitHub more, and with Heroku for the first time. And I discovered the awesomeness that is Wordnik!
I have a more detailed write-up about the mechanics on my blog.
I owe a tremendous amount to Sarah Kuehnle, whose posts were an invaluable guide for this first-timer.
Role: developer
This project was posted to MetaFilter by joseph conrad is fully awesome on February 7, 2015: Desire Bot: A Twitter Bot That Re-Posts What the World Wants
I was already following but this sealed it for me.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:19 AM on February 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:19 AM on February 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
I love it that the bot can make visual puns like this one on the noun/verb drop.
Thanks for making an amusing Twitter bot for me to follow! :)
posted by ShanShen at 10:50 AM on February 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
Thanks for making an amusing Twitter bot for me to follow! :)
posted by ShanShen at 10:50 AM on February 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
This is a great project! Thanks for linking the background info on it.
I sent out an experimental tweet this morning to see if/how long it might take to appear in @theDesirebot's timeline - haven't seen it yet but I hold out hope..
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 1:48 PM on February 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
I sent out an experimental tweet this morning to see if/how long it might take to appear in @theDesirebot's timeline - haven't seen it yet but I hold out hope..
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 1:48 PM on February 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
Thanks for the kind words, all!
joseph conrad is fully awesome: I think the odds are against you, if you're trying to get a tweet to show. The bot searches for tweets once every 30 minutes, and grabs 100 that have the phrase "I just want."
There are so many messages made with that phrase, you'd have to publish your tweet *just* when the bot performs its search. That said, it fires off every 30 minutes, so you might be able to schedule something and improve your chances that way.
posted by avoision at 2:04 PM on February 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
joseph conrad is fully awesome: I think the odds are against you, if you're trying to get a tweet to show. The bot searches for tweets once every 30 minutes, and grabs 100 that have the phrase "I just want."
There are so many messages made with that phrase, you'd have to publish your tweet *just* when the bot performs its search. That said, it fires off every 30 minutes, so you might be able to schedule something and improve your chances that way.
posted by avoision at 2:04 PM on February 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
Ahhhh, I see now. Thanks. One more question: when I favorite and/or retweet something from the Desire bot account, does the original tweeter "get" the retweet? Or does it count as a retweet from Desire Bot's account?
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 7:29 AM on February 7, 2015
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 7:29 AM on February 7, 2015
You would be favoriting the the Desire Bot account, in that case. In looking at how other bots handle their use of others' text, it seems rare to attribute the text to the original author.
This is, I feel, done for a few reasons: Simply RT-ing someone else's post makes the bot seem more... robotic, in nature (and, IMO, the RT kind of clutters things up). Also, having a @user mentioned in the tweet would alert the original poster - which might cause a lot of confusion.
Most of all, the lack of attribution is what allows the "I" in the message to be ascribed to either the bot itself, or to the subject of the image. Having a @user mentioned blurs that association.
posted by avoision at 8:02 AM on February 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
This is, I feel, done for a few reasons: Simply RT-ing someone else's post makes the bot seem more... robotic, in nature (and, IMO, the RT kind of clutters things up). Also, having a @user mentioned in the tweet would alert the original poster - which might cause a lot of confusion.
Most of all, the lack of attribution is what allows the "I" in the message to be ascribed to either the bot itself, or to the subject of the image. Having a @user mentioned blurs that association.
posted by avoision at 8:02 AM on February 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
I see - many thanks for explaining how it works. Nice project.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 9:25 AM on February 7, 2015
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 9:25 AM on February 7, 2015
This is really cool! Is there a way to get the original Flickr source of the photos it uses? It makes me a little itchy that there's no attribution or anything, since AFAICT the Flickr API doesn't auto-restrict its results to stuff with no copyright or CC attribution requirements. (Sorry for the obnoxious killjoy question :( )
posted by dorque at 11:01 AM on February 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by dorque at 11:01 AM on February 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
Great Idea, and thanks for writing about your process - I've been meaning to write a couple of fun twitter bots, and your articles (and links) look like a great starting point!
posted by motdiem2 at 1:01 AM on February 8, 2015
posted by motdiem2 at 1:01 AM on February 8, 2015
This definitely makes me want to look into writing a twitter bot, just to see what it involves...
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 8:58 AM on February 8, 2015
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 8:58 AM on February 8, 2015
dorque - Yours is a totally legit question, and one I really thought a lot about and looked into, prior to creating the bot. I think the use of Flickr images for this project falls under Fair Use, but obviously I'm quite biased in this regard.
I think Fair Use is the first shield many people reach for, and I totally recognize that I'm doing that very thing here, myself. But despite all the Law and Order episodes I've watched, as much as it pains me... I'm still not a lawyer.
I looked into the four factors of Fair Use, and I feel I'm meeting criteria on at least two of the counts: I do not believe the Desire Bot impacts the potential market for the image, and I also believe the end result (the tweet as text + image) is transformative.
The pairing, to me, results in something different from the original. At times, the posts made come across as the "voice" of the bot; at other times, the text serves as a kind of caption or thought, with the subject of the image serving as the speaker.
It's not parody (at least not intentionally), but I do believe the end result offers some other kind of insight or commentary than the original intent of the image (and text).
But, again - in all of this, I'm pretty biased. And also very much not a lawyer. So if I'm interpreting things here incorrectly - I'd love to hear from actual lawyers. And other Twitter bot creators too, while we're at it.
posted by avoision at 4:39 PM on February 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
I think Fair Use is the first shield many people reach for, and I totally recognize that I'm doing that very thing here, myself. But despite all the Law and Order episodes I've watched, as much as it pains me... I'm still not a lawyer.
I looked into the four factors of Fair Use, and I feel I'm meeting criteria on at least two of the counts: I do not believe the Desire Bot impacts the potential market for the image, and I also believe the end result (the tweet as text + image) is transformative.
The pairing, to me, results in something different from the original. At times, the posts made come across as the "voice" of the bot; at other times, the text serves as a kind of caption or thought, with the subject of the image serving as the speaker.
It's not parody (at least not intentionally), but I do believe the end result offers some other kind of insight or commentary than the original intent of the image (and text).
But, again - in all of this, I'm pretty biased. And also very much not a lawyer. So if I'm interpreting things here incorrectly - I'd love to hear from actual lawyers. And other Twitter bot creators too, while we're at it.
posted by avoision at 4:39 PM on February 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
I think the odds are against you, if you're trying to get a tweet to show. The bot searches for tweets once every 30 minutes, and grabs 100 that have the phrase "I just want."
Are you using Twitter's streaming API? If so, the odds are really against anyone getting their tweet to appear, as that API only samples something like 1% of the whole Twitter stream.
Also, I'm just going to repeat the props to Sarah Kuehnle. I met her at Hacker School, and she's awesome! (So is that tutorial, which I, too, have used...)
posted by the_blizz at 2:10 PM on February 15, 2015
Are you using Twitter's streaming API? If so, the odds are really against anyone getting their tweet to appear, as that API only samples something like 1% of the whole Twitter stream.
Also, I'm just going to repeat the props to Sarah Kuehnle. I met her at Hacker School, and she's awesome! (So is that tutorial, which I, too, have used...)
posted by the_blizz at 2:10 PM on February 15, 2015
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I love this. The best part, to me, is how un-literal most of the search results end up being. The resulting effect is more like... auto-generated, illustrated, micro-short-stories that invite the viewer to fill in the details. A few favorite examples:
https://twitter.com/theDesireBot/status/563621303908057088
https://twitter.com/theDesireBot/status/563636330526441472
https://twitter.com/theDesireBot/status/563583483831148544
posted by duffell at 7:38 AM on February 6, 2015 [1 favorite]