MSN/Gmail/Yahoo ect - Script that sends a message to all contacts ???

[Sirtokealot]

Hi, i would like to implement a system similar to the login at twitter, facebook, myspace and so on. You know once you register you are asked if you want to tell your friends and the site crawls your contacts then emails them all inviting them to join up

does anyone know where to start, what language would it use? does anyone know of ones you can buy or is it a bespoke design?

[tigerzone]

There is some api to all these websites, specially to twitter and facebook.

I programmer on php this 12 years.. so this is a great language to start with.

good luck...

[Hades]

I did it with PHP on several sites already, using the following classes to integrate with each service:

Yahoo address book:
http://www.phpclasses.org/browse/package/3127.html

MSN/Hotmail address book:
http://flumpcakes.co.uk/php/msn-messenger

I had some problems trying to grab a gmail address books but this class did it:
http://www.rapleaf.com/apidoc/v2/abook
(I think it's some kind of general class that you can use with any service so it's supposed to integrate with AOL, Yahoo and other providers as well but I'd suggest you try it before deciding).

Also be sure that your site is secured before using any of them, if you will ask your users for their email addresses and passwords you should have SSL and your users have to trust you. Otherwise you will be developing something that nobody will dare to use.