I really enjoy this messaging tool. Therefore, I started to develop solutions that uses Telegram APIs.
First there were bots. Bots everywhere. Bots that could do anything. Immediately I felt inspired and started to study about it.
The result of this study is shown below. Nowadays, I keep three bots working non-stop. They are fast, reliable and able handle a lot of requests every day.
First attempt to make a Telegram Bot using the oficial API and also a Python API, available on GitHub
https://github.com/eternnoir/pyTelegramBotAPI
The bot gets a message from the user and replies a link to the search using the tool Let me Google that for you.
A Telegram Bot that tracks packages from the Brazilian Postal Service.
The user sends the tracking code and the bot replies the last update available on the system.
This bot is able to create passwords and calculate hashes.
The user is guided through the whole proccess by changes made to the keyboard, as it is replaced by the available options.
It's open source and doesn't keep logs. Code on GitHub
This bot is able to shorten big links and also able to expand shortened ones.
The usage is really simple. The user sends a valid url and the bot does the rest. Simple and useful.
A few months later, Telegram releases channels feature. A Channel is able to send messages to an unlimited number of people. So I started to look for something in common between the largest number of people I could think of. The answer was: to save money.
My first channel fully controled by a bot. The data it gathers is crowd-sourced, so it's fast and reliable as there is a lot of people collecting and checking the information shared.
The purpose of this channel is to allow people to download apps as fast as possible while its cheaper than the regular price. Apps promotions usually don't last for more than one day.
Have you tried it? Rate it!
This channel is fully automated. It colects data from two well known twitter users that are specialized on discounted tickets and shares the info on the channel.
The advantage of this channel is to notify people when a cheap ticket is available. On most cases there are only a few seats available, so time matters.
Have you tried it? Rate it!
Another fully automated telegram channel. It works just like PromoPassagens. The difference is that On Sale isn't specialized on one kind of product. It gathers and shares info about almost everything that is sold below the regular price.
Users can find from gaming consoles until blenders. There are no limits. It's designed for people who likes to save money.
Have you tried it? Rate it!
This channel is a great information source to people who live in Brasília, Brazil. It gathers information from a wide range of sources and sends only what is important.
Automatically users are warned on real time about traffic jams, power failures, strikes, planned maintenance and news from the government.
Have you tried it? Rate it!
Also, I'm responsible for the bots that send content automatically to the following channels:
@CocatechPod - CocaTech podcast feed.
@PromoDroid - Promotions of Android apps.
@Rio_Agora - News about Rio de Janeiro.
In order to make things work, I've received support from some friends. I want to thank each and everyone who helped me to this day (in alphabetical order)
| Carlos Marcello | Daniel Costa | Edgar Araújo | Edward Ribeiro | Gustavo Faria |
| João H. Gouveia | Jonathas Fernandes | Leonardo Martins | Lincoln Rollin | Marcos Oliveira |
| Renato Benê | Roberty Simões | TravelRoutes | Valdery Brito |