Social Networking sites and apps for iPhone and Android development

Outsourcing Case Study: Social Networking site and apps

Customer

France Telecom is the main telecommunications company in France, the third largest in Europe and one of the largest in the world. It currently employs about 191,000 people (half outside of France) and has nearly 159 million customers worldwide (2007).

Business Case

The main idea was to allow France Telecom customers to communicate via virtual phone numbers instead of real phone numbers, which is keeping private.

A customer may send text messages from his virtual number anywhere and receive replies on his cell/land line phones (via TTS), e-mail account, IM, on web or desktop widget, Twitter, or Facebook application.

Social networking site and apps solution

SoloSoft has developed a set of social networking tools consisting of the Web part and the Clients, deployed on the iPhone, Android and Facebook.

Web interface allows a user to communicate instantly with individuals via text messaging. The member's phone number stays private, and the System gives complete control over which messages can come into their cell phone and which get routed to their other social services (like IM, email, Twitter, iPhone social apps, desktop widget or web widget):

User can add a Widget to his online profile or blog and receive messages from prospects worldwide while keeping both parties' phone numbers private.

User can choose a personalized virtual number and send messages from this number and receive replies straight into his accounts SMS inbox. These can then be forwarded to an email of user's choice, his mobile / land line phone, or even widget.

User can manage his messages on the social networking site and app (delete messages, reply, or send a new message). He can store old messages and check back on them whenever he needs.

User can manage his contacts (block, delete, and add new contacts)

User can import his webmail contacts (Yahoo, Gmail, or MSN hotmail accounts).

The registration process happens via web application.

Once a user has been authenticated, the application loads their messages and contacts from the web server.

Tools and Technologies

• Symfony PHP framework;
• AJAX;
• MySQL database;
• Clickatell SMS API for sending SMS messages using the Clickatell gateway;
• iPhone SDK;
• Android SDK open-source development environment.