New Twitter tool finds the recently dumped

A new Twitter tool provides followers with a list of people who have recently split up with their partners.

In what has to be one of the most amusing (and slightly sinister) uses of Twitter's API, Box UK has created reboundfinder to search for specific tweets from people who post that they have either dumped their loved ones, or been dumped by them, and then to RT, or retweet, their posts via its feed

Creator Dan Zambonini explains on his blog that he was really just showing how a simple filter can be used to startling effect in Twitter's open format.

Basic prototype

"Once I'd created a basic prototype that could search for any terms and re-tweet the results, other prototypes were easy," explains Zambonini.

"In this case, I set up a search for 'dumped' or 'broken up' with either 'my boyfriend' or 'my girlfriend'. The results are then re-tweeted to @reboundfinder.

"This is obviously not a serious use for the API, but an example of how a quick prototype can be easily re-used for other purposes."

Currently, reboundfinder has just a handful of followers, which we thought was an encouraging sign for the human race until we realised that you would have to be slightly mad to sign up when you can browse through the litany of human misery in search of a soulmate without putting your name to it.

We can see the Daily Mail 'web tool for predators' headline already...