A PHP tool to find and filter potential users to follow.
Written to automate the task of finding interesting and similar users that are likely to follow you back. The potential users are drawn from the followers of one user you specify. A list of criteria is then applied to each user in order to filter out those that are of little interest.
The application caches user profile information to cut down on Twitter API calls and network traffic. All caching is done on the local file system as I explicity wanted to avoid any reliance on a DB.
The application also keeps track of users that you are following and those that you have followed in the past (but are no longer following) to avoid re-following. Unfortunately Twitter does not expose a service to get a list of all people you have followed in the past, so this feature only works on users you have followed and then unfollowed while using this application.
Assuming you have a server capable of running php, the only non-standard requirement is that cURL is installed and activated. Personally I've been running WAMP Server.
We must then add our Twitter OAuth keys in FindToFollow.php.
Then simply load index.html in your browser and let the application do the rest.
This first pass is fully functional but is void of error checking. So far it has only been used for personal use on a local webserver so is lacking in basic security checks, input validation etc..
Currently each filtered user is presented with their basic information and a link to open their twitter profile where you can then follow the user. The next iteration will allow you to follow them directly from the application, rather than having to visit their profile page.
Copyright (c) 2013 Kyle Thielk
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
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