Multimap Twitter Bot User Guide
Multimap Twitter Bot User Guide
Imagine you're out and about in an area you don't know well and need a cash machine. Or you're in London and want to get to the nearest tube. Or maybe you've got some time on your hands and want to find out about a local place of interest... How can you find these things without a guide book?
The Multimap twitter bot helps you to access the same maps, directions and local information that you find on multimap.com by simply sending direct messages via twitter. You can send a message to fetch local information such as the closest ATM, tourist attraction, park, cinema, theatre or even find entries on wikipedia about what is nearby. See the full list.
To try it out, you'll first need to sign-up for a twitter account, and then add our multimap twitter user as a friend. You can do this by either going to multimap's page and clicking the add multimap link on the right hand side under 'Actions', or just click here after you have logged into twitter, and you're good to go.
The Twitter support pages describe how to get started as well as providing a detailed description of direct messaging. If anything doesn't make sense so far it would be worth taking a few minutes to read though those pages.
Once you're ready, you can then send direct messages to multimap in the format:
The from ... to command will send you a summary of a route between your two locations.
Message format: "from address string or lon,lat to address string or lon,lat"
Examples:
Example response: "Directions from edinburgh,gb to liverpool,gb :: A701 > A74(M) > M6 > M58"
The closest ... to command will send you a list of the nearest points of interest.
Message format: "closest thing to address string or lon,lat"
Examples:
Example wikipedia response: "1.Fleet Street,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleet_Street 2.Temple Church,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Church 3.Farringdon Without,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farringdon_Without 4.Inner Temple,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_Temple"
Example response: "1.Carré des Champs Elysées,Avenue des Champs-Elysées,Paris,75008 2.Pavillon Ledoyen,Avenue Dutuit,Paris,75008 3.Les Ambassadeurs,Place de la Concorde,Paris,75008 4.Farnesina,Rue Boissy d’Anglas,Paris,7500"
A complete list of local information categories (i.e. the value for 'thing') is below.
The to closest ... from command will send you a summary of a route to the nearest point of interest.
Message format: "to closest thing from address string or lon,lat"
Examples:
Example response: "Directions from ec4a2dy to Chancery Lane (the closest metrostation) :: A4 > B400 (Chancery Lane) > A40 (High Holburn)"
The map of command will send you a URL to a map of your location on multimap.com
Message format: "map of address string or lon,lat"
Examples:
Example response: "http://www.multimap.com/maps/?hloc=|ec4a2dy"
(This command works particularly well when using direct messages via IM.)
Finally, if you forget any of the above, you can always ask for help.
Message format: "help plus some optional random text for fun"
Examples:
Example response: "Instructions: map of PLACE, to closest POI from PLACE, closest POI to PLACE, from PLACE to PLACE"
Here is the complete list of POI categories ('things') that you can search for (currently, we have points of interest available in Europe and North America):
If you require further help with the Multimap Twitter Bot, please visit the Multimap Developer Forums.
For Multimap news, announcements and other information, please see our blog.