Dec 1, 2009 | Filed Under:
Announcements,
web apps 
Every day on Twitter we see people with the same problem. They can’t send direct messages to people who don’t follow them. Do a search any time and you’ll see dozens of people complaining about this every single day. We wanted a way to help these guys, and came up with Relayto.
Relayto is a message relay service that passes on any direct message it receives to another Twitter account. Getting started is easy, just follow @relayto and you’ll be sent instructions on what to do next.
We believe there are a lot of legitimate cases where a Twitter account would want to receive direct messages from people they don’t know. For instance, a business listening to customers and receiving negative feedback, or answers to an account that’s running a competition or a raffle. This is the target audience for Relayto to begin with.
How Do You Use It?
Using Relayto is simple, and best explained with an example. Say you want to send a relayed direct message to @shortdotie, you would write “d relayto shortdotie Hi there! I really like your site.”
The Relayto service will receive your message, figure out who you want to send it to, then forward your message to that account. And, if it’s successfully delivered you’ll receive a delivery report in much the same way that you would with a text message on your phone.
What’s The Catch?
There’s just one catch. The recipient must be following the @relayto account for it to work. We like to think of this as akin to any other opt-in service. And we believe there are some genuine benefits to a service like this. For example, it’s a silent account, so you won’t be bombarded with tweets from all those people you don’t want to listen to, and you’re opening your account up to receiving private feedback or private messages where a public message might not be suitable. It’s just another option.
Promoting The App
Last week I made a short presentation at The Connector Launch Event in Kooba on Leeson Street. I got some really good feedback on the night and I think it went down quite well. A lot of people can relate to the problem we’re trying to solve and that’s why we decided to build it in the first place.
Here are a few shots from the night. Many thanks to Conor for giving me the opportunity to launch Relayto at his event.
Check It Out
Relayto was something we built as an answer to all the Twitter folk who have had an issue with this in the past. So every time you hear somebody complain that they can’t DM you, and you’re not that bothered following them, why not follow @relayto instead?
So please, tell your friends, tell your colleagues because this app needs a critical mass before it becomes useful. Right now though, we’re just getting started, and when you think that everything big was once small, it doesn’t seem like such a crazy idea to give this a go.
