Twilio Rickrolls You Using Their API

I have worked with the Twilio API for a few projects. I have used Twilio to call me when disk space is running low on a server or to call my house and request its status. Twilio is a cloud-based communications platform for sending and receiving text messages or placing phone calls. Twilio is wrapped up nicely with a RESTful API, so ThingSpeak or MATLAB can use it without much setup.

Tonight, I was following a beginner tutorial that I wrote using Twilio and ThingSpeak. I noticed that their voice example plays a friendly greeting, and then, by surprise, Twilio starts playing Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” for the world’s geekiest rickroll.

Twilio’s example points to this URL: https://demo.twilio.com/docs/voice.xml.

If you look closer, you will see the following code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Response>
    <Say voice="alice">Thanks for trying our documentation. Enjoy!</Say>
    <Play>http://demo.twilio.com/docs/classic.mp3</Play>
</Response>

Go ahead and click: http://demo.twilio.com/docs/classic.mp3