Online archive of text messages

[roddy]

Ok, slowly and with no guarantee of ultimate success, this project lurches towards completion. If anyone has a phone full of Chinese text messages and the inclination to anonymously put them on the Internet, see if you can get them to me somehow. Bear in mind that exporting SMS from a phone isn't always easy, and getting the Chinese out in a readable format can be tricky. If you say what kind of phone you've got I can maybe help. But only maybe.

I envision a one a day format, with searchable archives, and no assistance for non-native speakers whatsoever. We've all been made soft by online dictionaries, pinyin-popups and all that jazz. We need to toughen up.

[muyongshi]

We need to toughen up.

顶！！！

I got a few tongue twisters, cute jokes, and the like. Can't get them off my phone though...(treo 680 and OS X) Tried quite a few times but no success.

[roddy]

Actually I'm more interested in random everyday ones rather than the joke types. But that's just me . . .

[muyongshi]

Could you provide an example of what you mean?

[roddy]

I posted a few back on page one I think - but basically anything that's in Chinese and on your phone would probably be suitable.

[muyongshi]

yeah, i figured there was examples somewhere but 1) i have a bad memory and this thread was started back in January and 2) I'm too lazy too take initiative

So even things like 晚上几点切吃饭？work? That'll be interesting

[roddy]

Definitely, if only for the idiosyncratic use of 切 - is that some odd Sichuan thing?

The mundane are welcome.

[muyongshi]

Ooooh Roddy you are a smart man....you caught the Sichuanhua!

[self-taught-mba]

You can forward to my phone and I'll get them for you and add it to the site. We have already 2000+ collected but only 100+ already posted since restarting the project. (what has held it up is my busy schedule - - and some technical issues with mass posting - despite an offer of help that has been so graciously offered. Also since I have sound files for them all bandwidth costs are an issue and I have to lock it down.)

If anyone knows good solution (free-podcasting maybe?)

I can add a contributions/random/interesting page in the mean time... That would be really easy and if kept seperate from the others it doesn't interfere with learning and adds flavor for the interested. If Roddy wants to help with auto - SMS post / distro it would be great (hint hint). Maybe easier to work it together, than to re-create the wheel. (but if two sites have the same thing then the more the merrier!) Either way can post things by hand for now.

The site again is mychineselife.com -- been there for a year and a half - originally in house project for former students.

[roddy]

Sneak preview.

As you can see, keeping it minimalist. Next is integration with Twitter and Fanfou, then a mass upload, and set it to put a new one up every day. RSS feed. Online link to contribute.

No donors?

[roddy]

RandomChineseSMS.com

Ok, it's up, it's running, and the database is loaded with enough posts to take us through to August 2009. I might make some design tweaks, add a form for contributors, maybe open up accounts for regular contributors, and a couple of other things, but basically it's taken shape.

You can also sign up to follow the updates on Twitter - this should allow you to get the content via SMS, MSN, Googletalk, etc - I'm not sure exactly what Twitter supports, you'll need to sign up and look. There's also an RSS feed linked on the site.

I was originally planning to do something similar for Fanfou.com, the Chinese version of Twitter. However, I couldn't find an easy way to send the site's RSS to Fanfou, like I could with Twitter.

Ideas? Contributions? Ridicule?

Edit:Search. Should be able to search . . .

Edited July 20, 2008 at 12:42 AM by roddy

[Gleaves]

This has been a quirky little addition to my rss feed page. Thanks for putting it together. I added the signese feed at the same time and have had a good time going through old posts.

I appreciate both of these sites for their everyday look at the langauge.

[roddy]

Glad someone is using it - something like this is always going to be niche interest, so every response counts.

[roddy]

The site now has a search function - pretty simple, just enter a Chinese character or two and you'll get back any messages in the database that include them. For example, uses of 了。

There aren't that many messages on there at the moment, so the value of the search function isn't that great. However, as the database grows it'll be more likely to return usage examples.

[Guest realmayo]

it's a cool site, I've started checking it every morning. can't help but try to guess the contexts of each message too...

[roddy]

Users of Google personalized iGoogle homepage can use this link to add a block with the latest random Chinese SMS messages to their pages.

[roddy]

Just updated with two weeks worth of messages after a brief hiatus due to me being mobile. They're meant to appear automatically, but aren't for some reason. Visitor numbers have been miserable though (why? Do people not want to read random Chinese text messages for some reason? How odd) so I think I might just publish the lot and let them sit there as a searchable archive.

[roddy]

Ok, after a few months of irregular / no updates due to me having to do it manually and . . not doing it . . . it's now running automatically. Daily random Chinese SMS messages via web, RSS or Twitter - RandomChineseSMS.com.

I'll shut up about it for a while now

[ABCinChina]

The random message of the day is "在外面工作？哪儿呢？".

Can I ask where these messages are coming from? Is somebody making them up or are they randomly taken from real-life people texting each other? That would be cool since you'd get a lot of funny ones though I doubt it would be legal.

[roddy]

Much as I'd love to claim I'm plucking these randomly out of the airwaves, they're all from my phone.