Show HN: Proxlet: Control Twitter w/ API Proxy

by aaronwhite • 16 years ago

46 24 16 years ago

We were tired of the noise on Twitter (noisy apps, lame content, erratic but otherwise valuable tweeters), so we decided to fix it. Proxlet is a Twitter API Proxy that runs scripts to modify the Twitter experience. Works with Twitter for iPhone, TweetDeck, and any other client that supports custom API URLs, including a 1-click install Chrome Extension for Twitter.com

What do you think? Right approach?

aaronwhite7• 16 years ago

What do you think? Right approach? (@aaronwhite & @ChrisRicca)

sudonim• 16 years ago

Nice. The chrome extension is new? One of the things I wasn't crazy about before was having to configure my twitter clients to grab my feed via proxlet.

aaronwhite7• 16 years ago

Yup, the Chrome Extension is new and what makes it exciting (again). The per-client install process was too difficult/error-prone, so when we saw we could "hook" Twitter.com, we jumped on it.

mcantelon• 16 years ago

Nice job! A couple questions... Is there a way to manage mutes (so you can unmute something that's been muted forever, for example)? Also, if I do mutes, etc., on one computer's Proxlet will they also take effect on another computer I use the Proxlet extension on?

aaronwhite7• 16 years ago

Proxlet manages all your settings at Proxlet.com, so if you use multiple Proxlet enabled clients, all your settings will be shared. In terms of unmuting, you can go to Proxlet.com and mute someone for "1 minute" and that will effectively un-mute them. We'll be adding a far more obvious method both on the website and in the extension soon.

jeffmiller• 16 years ago

Are you guys concerned about having to replicate Twitter's API infrastructure, even at a vastly lower scale?

(I'm a fan of the product. The world needs more Twitter filtering.)

aaronwhite7• 16 years ago

Since it's a proxy, we've only had to selectively modify parts of the API, and we have some SecretSauce(tm) that normalizes the process. :)

jdunck2• 16 years ago

I had this same frustration and same implementation idea -- proxy is awesome because any client can easily gain features by a checkbox pref "Use proxlet".

I never pursued it because I wasn't sure how I could sustain it -- I asked my heavy-twitter friends about it. They all agreed it sounded like a good idea, but none of them thought they'd be willing to pay for it.

Have you done any market research, or are you just doing it for fun for now?

Anyway, I'm happy to see it. Where's the paypal donate button?

aaronwhite7• 16 years ago

We did it to scratch our own itch primarily. It also gave me an excuse to play w/ the Twitter API and lots of really interesting technology (full blog post on how Proxlet is architected soon). Not desperate to monetize it, it can handle many many thousands of users at a cost of $10/mo to us, but we do have some ideas.

Paypal donate?! Probably should add that for satisfied super-fans :)

arieldiaz• 16 years ago

Finally a great way to customize Twitter and make it useful, while diving into some granular control. Awesome technology on the back end as well.

mhodgson• 16 years ago

Wow, works great. Now I can follow people without having to actually listen to them.

babeKnuth2• 16 years ago

best. use-case. ever.

jdunck2• 16 years ago

Really? I hope that's not true. Friend != follow. :-(

bbalfour• 16 years ago

This is pretty cool.

I'd love to see a list of the most hated twitter users as a measure of who is muted the most using your service. You could also do this with the hash tags to see what the most annoying trends are.

mmanning• 16 years ago

I've actually started using Twitter much more entirely due to this plugin. There was way too much garbage before. Nice work.

kmfrk• 16 years ago

Are you planning to expand this to other browsers?

aaronwhite7• 16 years ago

Yes. Once we've nailed what people want w/ Chrome, we'll pick the next browser to tackle. Would love to hear people's thoughts on that

markitechtMA• 16 years ago

This has transformed my experience with Twitter. I'm using it in Chrome just with the regular Twitter web client and it ROCKS! Nice work guys, definitely going to tell friends and coworkers.

jwegener• 16 years ago

WHOOO!

jeffclark• 16 years ago

Twitter.com + Proxlet Chrome Extension = No more foursquare updates. No more annoying conference live-tweets. No more Brett Favre speculation.

It's so great. I want to give it a hug.

chobopants• 16 years ago

Proxlet brings Twitter back to the usefulness I came to it for.

iworkforthem• 16 years ago

clickable: http://proxlet.com/

Show HN: Proxlet: Control Twitter w/ API Proxy

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