Project 0001/1001: FollowRoad.One

I decided to do the first project (out of one thousand and one) to solve my own problem.

I have not researched Twitter analytics tools well, but it does not matter to me now. I need to start with something.

A simple tool

FollowRoad.One is a simple follower analytics tool for Twitter. That’s it. The definition can be changed if the product is evolved in the future.

Sustainability

I pay $17 per month for one server and one managed database to support the project now. Really, it is just three cups of coffee. But what a joy I have for building the app.

My main concern with sustainability is that people rely on the project, but I can later close it because of financial reasons.

So, I plan to add a paid option with a premium set of features to sustain the project.

Open source

I would like to open-source the project to establish trust and allow others to contribute freely. But I need to weigh this move, because:

1. Security matters a lot, and I need to thoroughly audit the code to make sure that any information could not be leaked.
2. I need to refactor it and make it readable for others.
3. Twitter states in policy that they do not allow running similar apps. If someone just clones the repository and runs the copy of the app, Twitter might block the original app too. I need to think and consult with Twitter on how to overcome the issue.

All the problems I mentioned are resolvable, but it takes time and energy to resolve.

Feature requests

Feel free to reach me on Twitter to ask for any feature requests.