Peter Hough
http://twitrand.com allows Twitter users to generate a random follower, friend or retweeted url/phrase.
I had the idea to create this web application when Alex Albrecht gave away an iPhone to one of his followers. He did this by generating a random number between 1 and the number of followers he had, he then tweeted this number to let people know what it was. Alex then took a good few minutes to find follower 30,987 (or whatever it was). I could imagine him going through pages counting names, so I created twitrand, which not only generates the random number and finds that person for you, it provides you with a custom url to a timestamped result, proving there has been no foul play in the selection.
twitrand has proved a very useful tool, featuring in Smashing Magazine's 99 essential twitter tools and applications and is current used on a regular basis by:
- Duct Tape Marketing: Free Random Twitter Follower Winner
- Uncrate: Also: we're using http://twitrand.com to pick winners. That means long-time subscribers have the same chances of winning as noobs.
- I Love Typography: apologies to the tweeter who put me onto twitRand (very useful), but I don't remember who it was. Anyway, thanks.