Today (on the parts of this beautiful fall day in colorado that I can spend inside/behind a keyboard, ok I couldn’t I moved outside) I am twitter-enabling WildObs. So far the API for Direct Messages has been easy enough, although I have submit this issue:

The goal is to allow an encounter to be created by (following http://twitter.com/wildobs) then directing a message via:

/d wildobs {Category} at {Location} at {date/time}

for wildobs observers who have registered their twitter url/id.

This basically works although there are issues with:

• TZ. What timezone is the sender in? WildObs needs to get way more TZ aware.
• What should be the default location? One’s current Twitter location, or their Wildobs default? Ought the encounter TZ come from the tweeted location?
• Can I extend this to allow photos and/or descriptions? Maybe by parsing a trailing URL? (Maybe using http://Twitpic.com)

… any input on these welcomed.

The next steps will be to (assuming the observer has provided their Twitter password) echo the newly formed encounter to their twitter account’s stream.