Meet Twinder - a Tinder-like bot on Twitter by 4 Nigerians

Update, 14th January, 2018: The section “A case for Twinder” has been significantly improved with more analysis

Twinder is a bot designed to match you with your Twitter crush(es) built by HelloWorld.ng, a small collective of designers and developers who make top quality web applications and websites.

Hi! Twinder is a bot to help you match with your Twitter crushes – basically Tinder for Twitter.

— Twinder (@twinderbot) January 8, 2018

If you are a frequent Twitter user, you’ll have heard the phrase “Shoot your shot” more times than your name. In fact, a part of many’s new year resolutions was the confidence to shoot shot in 2018.

Now, the problem with shooting a shot is that you might get curved, simply put, rejected. And no one wants to hurt his ego by doing that.

Enter Middlemen

Over time, people have used what Yoruba’s call an Alarina – a love broker, an intermediary to communicate their interest in another. With the proliferation of more digital platforms, the job of the Alarina slowly moved to anonymous (aka anon). On Twitter, people used accounts like now suspended, @SubDeliveryMan, to send anon, subliminal (sometimes hate) messages to people which could explain the reason for its suspension.

How SubdeliveryMan worked

User A sends a direct message to the Subdeliveryman Twitter account.
The Subdelivery man then screenshots the message and tags the intended recipient (s) without revealing the identity of the originator.

Upon its suspension, people moved to a full-blown QnA service that allowed people send messages with an option to be anon, CuriousCat (with 1 million daily users). This service also embedded social integration to allow people share their responses to the questions they get asked. Usually, people shared them on Twitter.

Since people tended to share their responses on Twitter, why not create a tool based on Twitter to allow this kind of transactions take place?

A Case for Twinder

https://twitter.com/uncooloj/status/950686812061753344

Like Subdeliveryman, Twinder will maintain the trust of its users and protect their privacy.

We will never reveal anybody's shots. It's between you, your target (if they ever DM your name back) and us! Forever!

— Twinder (@twinderbot) January 9, 2018

However, they can only go so far to ensure the anonymity of their users. What if someone hacks into the Twinder account?

Jokes. Hackers will rather spend their time hacking influential figures like John McAfee, a cybersecurity pioneer and Anderson Cooper, a CNN host. But yeah, it’s still a probability just that on the risk matrix, it’s likelihood is low and its impact will not be catastrophic.

How Twinder works

How does this work?

1. Follow the bot.
2. If you like someone, send a DM to the bot with the handle of this person.
3. If your crush in turn sends a DM with your handle, we'll let you both know that you like each other.

Match!

— Twinder (@twinderbot) January 8, 2018

However, that algorithm (step-by-step process) might be too abstract. So, I’ll talk about me as a real-user.

My “Shot” story

Jan 11, I followed @TwinderBot and they (or it) followed back.

As I attempted to DM them, I got this lengthy automated message explaining that they might take sometime before they get back to me due to technical issues. Also, stating that I “can only send one target a day” as “others will be ignored”. Finally, it submitted that I simply needed to put in the handle (with the preceeding ‘@’ symbol) and nothing else.

After I followed their rule, they reassured me that my shot has been recorded.

While I was waiting for my crush to get a notification that someone had shot their shot at her, she didn’t, :(.

I later realised after I had told her that I shot and then she now sent my handle to the bot. Only then did I get a success message.

Drawback

The timeliness and probability of getting a response are really in question here. Timeliness has to deal with the amount of request the bot can handle within a stipulated time given the constraints given by Twitter. Probability here talks about the 1 in 330,000,000 chance that the person knows of a dedicated Twitter account for shooting shots – @twinderBot’s. See @theShalvah’s comment.

Plus the person might not be in Twitter/know of the bot's existence

— FULL SEND (@theshalvah) January 13, 2018

N.B – That 1 in 330,000,000 probability might have been exaggerated. As usually, people tend to shoot shots at people within their circles/bubbles (which can be limited to the people they follow, their friends follow and the people following them). Except for people that have celebrity crushes, :).

I only used that number as a worst-case scenario to drive home my point

Twinder’s Traction and controversy

Already, we know that the number of followers indicates the number of people that have used the bot (save for the disappointed people who might unfollow after not getting a response, LOL).

Yesterday, when I checked the site there were less than 50 followers of the account. Coming back today and there are over 500 followers, an over 90% growth in usage within 24hours.

Questions: Are people using the service as they ought to? Does the service even work? Are the users excited? Will the excitement be sustained? Let’s look at two different scenarios; a happy user and a not-so-happy user.

Happy user: Here is the tweet from a user who got a positive response.

https://twitter.com/uncooloj/status/950686812061753344

2. A not-so-happy user: *His caption is funny to me*

https://twitter.com/segunfamisa/status/951181759416340480

An “advanced” Twitter user, Ataul, thinks it’s a scam. That’s not surprising considering his background as a developer where he might have been exposed to all manner of apps malicious use of technology.

What if it's a giant scam and they're collecting information to blackmail people.

— androiddev.social/@ataulm (@ataulm) January 10, 2018

Good-to-know: Segun Famisa was also part of the development team for the TwinderBot

Our recommendation to Segun would be for him to exercise a little more patience, maybe, just maybe the bot has hit its API DM limit. Therefore, it’s taking sometime before it relays a response.

Or maybe not, perhaps, the person just doesn’t like him and in that case, we’ll hand him an ‘L’ for being brave, LOL.

"L" Gif

Controversy

It’s not uncommon for two (or more) parties to lay claim to an (already succeeding) idea. See Zuckerberg and the Winklevoss Twins.

While still in its early days, TwinderBot has faced (and is probably still facing) criticisms over stealing the idea from another Twitter user @Cherrell_Brown.

https://twitter.com/WhirlyCurlyKey/status/950863673639292929

Ms. Brown claims she started the idea 2 years ago:

https://twitter.com/Cherrell_Brown/status/950860301129408512

The developer, Timi, took to Twitter to narrate his own side of the story of how he came to the Twinder idea, dating it back to 2014 with documentation as proof. “It’s always been an idea we had, was supposed to be Android”, adds Ope (@fathermerry), a co-creator of Twinder.

Fun fact: Efe Money (@EfeMoney_) was the fourth Nigerian that contributed to the development of the bot

He admits that he copied some features like “blind pairing” from Tinder, launched in 2012. Also, he doesn’t fail to mention that other people have built subsequent versions of Tinder-on-Twitter, see twinder.co. He submits that no party “can lay claim to a name that’s an actual rip off of Tinder”.

Tinder is a location-based social search mobile app that allows users swipe left or right and allows users to chat if both parties swiped to the right. The app is used as a dating app or hookup app, depending on the user’s individual preference.

Follow the thread below for the full disclosure.

https://twitter.com/timigod/status/951167319203557377

In our opinion, Mr Ajiboye made a solid argument given what we have seen so far. Also, he offered to show proof to the “plaintiff”, Ms Brown via a Skype call. After they had already exchanged emails.

https://twitter.com/timigod/status/951170249742790657

We hope both parties are able to solve this amicably between themselves. In the meantime, head over to TwinderBot and shoot that shot!

Follow this writer on Twitter @DadaBen_.