A little PR for @myflightinfo

A little PR goes a long long way for @myflightinfo

I launched the bot during the first week of January this year.  Actually, it was a few days before the Miracle on the Hudson event.  So, I decided to hold off on the marketing.

I was marketing the bot to those I though would find it useful.  I would keep a search column open for “flight status” on Tweetdeck and when a tweet matched, I would review and send a reply if it made sense.  This was simple, easy and non-intrusive.  But I knew it wasn’t going to garner the followers to make it into a successful product.

On Monday Feb. 9, a tweet went out from @mashable linking to a post by @iElliott on productivity with twitter.
Update: I did not approach @mashable or @iElliott for a plug.  I assume they found it to be useful and wanted to share it with their readers.

@mashable tweet
@mashable tweet

This started the flow of followers.  Before the tweet, there were about 12 followers; 24 hours later, 270.  It was mad rush in the first few hours and has slowed to a trickle now.  (I will see if can plot the follower flow) The majority of followers is in the US, which is good, cause the product mostly supports US and large international airlines.

map of @myflightinfo
map of @myflightinfo

Now the hard part of delivering what the followers want – a simple and useful product.

I have lots of ideas about how to make it better, but I’d like to incorporate what the users want.

If you have any comments/questions/suggestions please send to @myflightinfo or to me at my personal account @lmai

Don’t forget to check your flight status with @myflightinfo !!
You can get your own map of followers at http://www.ironmonkeyventures.com/mapmytweeps

@myflightinfo takes off

I was traveling quite a bit for work, and there was no easy way to check my flight status.  The blackberry browser does not work with most airline and flight info service websites.
The last thing I need to do is sign up for more alerts and services.

So I wrote this twitter bot that will reply with my flight status.
It’s fast, free, and simple.

1.  Follow @myflightinfo and wait for a follow back.
2.  Send your flight information in a message.  Like this “d myflightinfo co101”.
3.  Within a minute, you should get a direct message back with your status.

myflightinfo_screenshot1

The data comes from Flightstats.com