Twitter App: Substitute

This is now a thing: http://github.com/insin/substitute

A Twitter app for conveniently correcting typos.

In lieu of an edit button, correcting a typo on Twitter involves deleting the original tweet and creating a new one. If you’re tweeting via the web interface, this is annoying. If you’re tweeting via SMS or via a browser on a standard mobile phone using m.twitter.com, this is more painful (first-world problems definition) than it needs to be, as the typo must die.

Specification

The app should monitor your tweet timeline, looking for tweets matching the following format:

s/this/that/

When a matching tweet is found, the app should:

  1. locate the previous tweet in your timeline,
  2. verify that it matches the first part of the replacement expression,
  3. perform the replacement and tweet it,
  4. delete both the original tweet and the tweet specifying the replacement.