Collabtweet – Multiple Users, Single Twitter Account

Collabtweet is now deprecated and has been replaced with SocialTurn. Read my post regarding SocialTurn

Enable multiple users to post to a single collaborative twitter account.

Why would you need such a program?
1. You run a small company/group which you would like twitter users to follow
2. You would like twitter users to follow a single brand (twitter account) and not separate multiple users
3. You would like a simple slick interface to enable your users to post to your collaborative twitter account
4. You would like to hide your real twitter account password from your users
5. You would like to automatically add “-username” to all tweets by a user
6. You would like to host this service on your own server

Demonstration
Please login with one of the following username/password combination:
johndoe/johndoe
janedoe/janedoe
babydoe/babydoe

Click here to launch Collabtweet demo

For demonstration purposes, I am using a dummy twitter account- http://www.twitter.com/collabtweet

Screenshots

Download
Collabtweet – Multiple Users, Single Twitter Account

Requirements
Web server capable of running PHP

Configuration
Simple edit config.php and modify the users which can access your account and your twitter username and password.

<?php

// Username => Password
// Username will be used as nickname
$users = array(
"USER1" => "PASS1",
"USER2" => "PASS2",
"USER3" => "PASS3"
);


$twitterUser = "YOURTWITTERUSERNAME";
$twitterPass = "YOURTWITTERPASSWORD";

Future Updates
1. Ability to manage users using a web interface

Comments/Suggestions?
Do let me know your suggestions on how we can improve this code or any other features you would like to add.

Spread The Word
If you like what you are reading, then please help spread the word by re-tweeting, blogging or using the ShareThis button below. Thank you.

tanvi
hey this is really cool man! works perfect.. superb!
keep up the good work 🙂
Gordon Rouse
I’d love to allow users to preset a time for their tweet to go out.
Also, perhaps having some form of moderation possible… so those items sent could first come to me (as a direct message with a link to moderation screen?) before I agree them?
This is excellent. Thanks 🙂
[colleen]
I have a website (greenwaveblog.com) which I have set up in wordpress. How would I go about setting up the PHP in wordpress? Do I download Collabtweet then put it on my server after editing the config.php file? Or do I have to edit my wp-config file? I think this is exactly what I’m looking for but I’m such a newbie, I don’t know how to execute it. Help!
- Anant Garg
  @colleen Hello, Please contact me using the form below so that I can help you install the script on your server.
John Carr
1: Is it possible to not have individual usernames appended to end, and just use this as a convenient front-end for multiple users to post to the same account without attribution?
2: I really like Gordon’s suggestion regarding moderation of tweets.
AndyRHeath
@John Carr
1. if you open the file collabtweet.php and on line 30 change the $status = $_POST[‘tweet’].’ -‘.$_SESSION[‘username’]; to be $status = $_POST[‘tweet’];
This gets rid of the username post on the end.
Tero
Installed Collabtweet, everything seems to be in order; it says, “Your twitter profile has been successfully updated.” Nothing actually happens on Twitter, though. Any ideas what might be going wrong?
(Twitter username and password in the config are correct, I checked.)
Kai
I have the same problem Tero mentioned. I can’t get the statusupdate showing up on twitter. And the application always says: “Your twitter profile has been successfully updated”
FB
Hi,
what attributes of Creative Commons are you giving your application? The source just says it is licensed as CC.
We would like to modify your UI and app to have multiple users and multiple accounts for internal corporate blogging.
- Anant Garg
  @FB It is licensed under MIT style license. You can do whatever you like with it as long as you keep the copyright information intact.
Brendan Delaney
Collabtweet was super-easy to install, customizable (I removed the “-username” functionality), and was exactly what I needed. Thank you!
joe b
I want to put together a hotline for dog rescue – this looks nice, except I expect a ton of spam. 3 things:
policing maybe via askimet stuff, some of the anti-spam things used via contact form code;
package this as a widget for wordpress sites – so id’s/passwords can be done by a non-programmer (and might help with some anti-spam tools?);
maybe the various things requested suggest that input be put in as comments to a wordpress blog (allow moderating, spam-catching, etc.) and then feed it to your same twitter mechanism after this “scrubbing”.
(But, does this turn into a twitter output plugin for wordpress blogs?)
Your “fix” should let me have a hotline for “everyone” to put in requests and everyone to follow — unless SPAM gets it killed, or a flurry of messages causes twitter to shut it down, etc..
Thanks for the code!!
-z-
Hey guys, I tested the demo and it works perfect, but after installation I’m running into an error – the tweets are not being sent to twitter.
The error log is displaying this message:
PHP Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING, expecting T_OLD_FUNCTION or T_FUNCTION or T_VAR or ‘}’ in /home/myusername/public_html/mydomain/collabtweet/twitter.php on line 21
So far I’ve only modified the page with the username/passwords.
I would really like to use this feature as it’s the ideal way to do this…
Please let me know your thoughts – email me if you’d like.
Thank you,
-z-
06/08
Hi,
Is there any possibility to update this one single account from a mobile device? I mean, any user could update not only from web but also from a sms.
Congrats for your brilliant idea!
J.
Ben
Hi, I’m having the same problem as -z- . I’d love to get this working on our host.
Thanks
-Ben
arthur
@-z-
The error is caused not by the script but the server.
Check your host and php version
Martman
Great idea no doubt.
tried to get it working, but seem to run into the same problem as Tero and Kai, can log into CollabTweet, but after tweeting the succes message comes back but no actual tweet on the twitter account, is there anything i need to check on our server end ?
martman
Pablo PARRADO
Installed Collabtweet, everything seems to be in order; it says, “Your twitter profile has been successfully updated.” Nothing actually happens on Twitter, though. Any ideas what might be going wrong?
Saw more feedbackon this in the website but unfortunatelly without answers.
Take care
Rutger
Thanks! Works like a charm. If you have any problems, check if your server allows curl.
Regards,
R.
c0bra
found the bug in the software:
just add
curl_setopt($this->ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array(‘Expect:’));
@ line 38 (where the other curl options are) in the twitter.php file and it will work!
nevertheless nice work!
Pablo
Our server has curl and supports it. But the app doesn’t wants to work… tested in two servers.
Iulius
Love this script. Thanks for your work 🙂
cupcakes
It would be nice if you had URL shortening integration that detects that a URL has been entered and immediately shortens it.
cupcakes
Added the following code to collabtweet.php to fill out the URL shortening problem:
function shorten_url($matches) {
// EDIT: the preg function will supply an array with all submatches
$long_url = $matches[0];
// API stuff here…
$url = “http://tinyurl.com/api-create.php?url=$long_url”;
return file_get_contents($url);
}
function tweet() {
include_once(‘twitter.php’);
global $twitterUser;
global $twitterPass;
$curTwitter = new twitter(“$twitterUser”, “$twitterPass”);
$loggedin = authenticate();
if ($loggedin == 0) {
echo “0”;
exit;
}
$tweetShortened = preg_replace_callback(‘|http(s)?://([a-z0-9?./\-\_=%#]{1,500})|i’, ‘shorten_url’, $_POST[‘tweet’]);
$status = $tweetShortened.’ -‘.$_SESSION[‘username’];
if ($curTwitter->setStatus($status) == true) {
echo “$twitterUser”;
} else {
echo “0”;
}
}
Simon
Tried what c0bra suggested but still does not work 🙁
PHP server returns this error message each time a request is sent:
* About to connect() to twitter.com port 80 (#0)
* Trying 128.242.240.20… * connected
* Connected to twitter.com (128.242.240.20) port 80 (#0)
* Server auth using Basic with user ‘xxxx’
> POST /statuses/update.xml?status=Testing+Collabtweet HTTP/1.1
Authorization: Basic XXXX
Host: twitter.com
Accept: */*
Content-Length: -1
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
* Closing connection #0
* Failure when receiving data from the peer
nettigritty.com Support
For everyone getting a success message but no update in twitter, modify the setStatus function in twitter.php as follows:
public function setStatus($stat) {
if(strlen($stat) user:$this->pass”);
$result = curl_exec($curl);
$resultArray = curl_getinfo($curl);
if ($resultArray[‘http_code’] == 200) ;
return true;
return false;
}
nettigritty.com Support
Since the last posting did not accept code, for everyone getting a success message but no update in twitter, modify the setStatus function in twitter.php as per
http://www.nettigritty.com/collabtweet.twitter.php.txt
islasands
I have a free-hosted multi-user wordpress site and want to use collabtweet. Not sure how to do it. Can you help?
Red Dragon
Has anyone figured out how to make CollabTweet work with Twitter’s new OAuth changes? I really need to get it working again. Thanks!
c0bra
for oauth use:
get oauth lib: http://abrah.am
register on ur account a new application and generate ur one access token: http://dev.twitter.com/pages/oauth_single_token
change tweet function like this… i know exception handling is missing… any ideas?
function tweet() {
$status = $_POST[‘tweet’].’ @’.$_SESSION[‘username’];
require_once(‘twitteroauth/twitterOAuth.php’);
$oauth_token = “-enter token here-“;
$oauth_token_secret = “-enter token secret here-“;
//$consumer_key = “UQ2hRW1Z7smmSPJPiaQxg”;
//$consumer_secret = “eYLfaDVCGEKHyN14nOz4rV0SdH3mniki9ohnd8rko”;
function getConnectionWithAccessToken($oauth_token, $oauth_token_secret) {
$connection = new TwitterOAuth(“-enter consumer key here-“, “-enter consumer secret here-“, $oauth_token, $oauth_token_secret);
return $connection;
}
$connection = getConnectionWithAccessToken($oauth_token, $oauth_token_secret);
$connection->format = ‘xml’;
$content = $connection->OAuthRequest(‘https://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml’, array(‘status’ => $status), ‘POST’);
global $twitterUser;
echo “$twitterUser”;
}
Red Dragon
Thanks c0bra, but I cannot get it to work, Is there any chance of posting a working example? My problem is as follows:
I’ve registered everything with Twitter and received my token and consumer key and secret, but when I try to submit a Tweet though CollabTweet, it attempts to send and then seems to break when running the following line of code:
require_once(‘twitteroauth/twitteroauth.php’);
It says:
Fatal error: Class ‘TwitterOAuth’ not found in D:\Hosting\xxxxxxx\html\MYURL.com\twitter\collabtweet.php on line 27
Line 27 is:
$connection = new TwitterOAuth(”-enter consumer key here-”, “-enter consumer secret here-”, $oauth_token, $oauth_token_secret);
Can you please help?
c0bra
it looks like u havent uploaded the twitter librarys yet….
oh, i see… i forgot to mention it: goto http://github.com/abraham/twitteroauth/tree/master/twitteroauth/
and get the two files. put them into a directory named “twitteroauth”
i hope this was the only mistake!
ive added some exception management…not very detailed but i think it’ll do the job.
i cant upload a full version here and anywhere else would be not very gentle.
function tweet() {
$status = $_POST[‘tweet’].’ @’.$_SESSION[‘username’];
require_once(‘twitteroauth/twitterOAuth.php’);
$oauth_token = “-fill in here-“;
$oauth_token_secret = “-fill in here-“;
function getConnectionWithAccessToken($oauth_token, $oauth_token_secret) {
$connection = new TwitterOAuth(“-fill consumer key in here-“, “-fill in consumer secret here-“, $oauth_token, $oauth_token_secret);
return $connection;
}
$connection = getConnectionWithAccessToken($oauth_token, $oauth_token_secret);
//$connection->format = ‘json’;
$content = $connection->OAuthRequest(‘https://twitter.com/statuses/update.json’, array(‘status’ => $status), ‘POST’);
$response = json_decode($content);
global $twitterUser;
if (isset($response->{‘id’})) {
echo $twitterUser.”/status/”.$response->{‘id’};
} else {
fwrite($log, “tweeting not successful!\n”);
echo “0”;
}
}
Red Dragon
I don’t know whats going on — it keeps giving an error on the connection string:
Fatal error: Class ‘TwitterOAuth’ not found in D:\Hosting\xxxxxx\html\myWebsite.com\twitter\collabtweet.php on line 24
Line 24 is:
$connection = new TwitterOAuth(“xxx, xxx, xxx, xxx”);
I definitely downloaded the libraries and uploaded them too, so that isn’t the problem.
Please help?
Red Dragon
The error above actually loads the page twitterOAuth.php into the browser and displays it as if it were a web page meant to be displayed — and the error is at the very bottom.
Please help?
Red Dragon
Disregard that last comment – it does try to load some web page with the error at the bottom, but its not twitterOAuth.php
My post from (11.1.10 / 6pm) is accurate though. Sorry.
rutger
I have everything setup as far as I can see, the site lets me post a tweet and all seems to be going alright, but it never shows up on my twitter.
Any idea what could be wrong?
Gem
Iv got exactly the same problem as Rutger has Twitter stopped this from working?
G
Opensource Deveploment
Its really a great idea for the small business websites to popularize their product or services.
Josh
Does anyone know if allowing multiple users to access your account violates the Twitter (or Twitter API) Terms of Service?
Fanatic
I get the same results using the demo live, the tweet is submitted successfully but not displaying on the Twitter page, is this project dropped?
bH
I’ve fixed the original to work with Oauth using Twitter’s Oauth PHP class. Don’t forget to give your app read and write access in Twitter after you’ve created it. You can download it here: http://bit.ly/zaQIUN
Nolan
I am still having difficulties setting this up. I’ve downloaded bH’s version and uploaded it to my site. PHP is enabled, but I’m not fluent in PHP so I don’t know my way around it.
Can anyone give an explanation for those of us who don’t know how to use PHP? It would be extremely helpful.