Software development

The SMS Paradox: An Argument for Dumb Pipes

The SMS Paradox: An Argument for Dumb Pipes

As it turns out - most of human infrastructure is built on (arguably) secure, dumb pipes. It’s what enables us to rely on infrastructure without constantly worrying that it’s being used against us. Confidence in the security of dumb pipes is why we drink water from taps (or bottles), trust pharmacists, and express some of our most personal things to our loved ones, over the phone. In fact, one of the things that makes Signal such a growingly popular app is that its lack of commercial motivation means that it doesn’t have to make the revenue-driven turn to user exploitation. Signal can stay smart about being intelligently secure, dumb (wilfully ignorant, really) pipes.

Messaging: From Apps to Architecture

Messaging: From Apps to Architecture

When someone talks about messaging, the first thing that comes to mind is an app. The point is, that most people experience messaging through an app. And, until recently, apps were what defined the messaging market. Now, it seems, all of that is about to change.

Technology Volunteerism for Social Good; How we made Frontline easier to use

Technology Volunteerism for Social Good; How we made Frontline easier to use

At Frontline, we believe that partnership and collaboration best help us drive positive social change. Today I’m delighted to share how our partnership with SocialCoding4Good, an initiative of Benetech, has resulted in great improvement to the FrontlineSMS contact search and selection capability, using our newly released Multi Selector tool. See the demo of the multi selector to see how it works.

FrontlineCloud is one year old today!

FrontlineCloud is one year old today!

As the latest iteration of the Frontline product suite celebrates its first birthday, now seems the perfect time to sit back with a cupcake and reflect on the successes – and challenges – of the past twelve months.

Frontline at Nine

Frontline at Nine

For a technology product, a 9th birthday is no small feat. It’s an even bigger feat for a technology non-profit. So, it's taken a lot of deliberation, but it’s time to announce something we’ve been working on for a while: Frontline is becoming a business.

Introducing FrontlineSync!

Introducing FrontlineSync!

Starting today, we’re making it even easier to engage, everywhere. We’d like to introduce you to FrontlineSync, our first, free Android app, available now on the Google Play Store. FrontlineSync turns any Android phone into a gateway - meaning that users can now use local phone numbers to send, receive, and manage SMS, and - for the first time - missed calls using FrontlineCloud and FrontlineSMS.

Send and receive SMS through from your website or service

Send and receive SMS through from your website or service

One of the most asked-about features of our apps (FrontlineSMS and FrontlineCloud) is regarding the ability to handle sending and receiving messages through a third party application or web service. Many of our users want to build apps for a wide range of application areas which talk to our apps so that we can handle their SMS functionality. Using any language that can call normal API methods many successful integrations have been developed with great success and with limited input required from us.

Frontline:Credit Project is BACK!

Frontline:Credit Project is BACK!

Hurray! The Frontline Credit Project is back up and running! The :Credit project lowers barriers to moving value through mobile, whether through mobile money, airtime, or voucher codes. We research mobile money trends and insert ourselves in markets around the world so that we know where strong and upcoming markets are currently and can predict where they will create huge impact in the near future. 

Release Notes: January Updates to FrontlineCloud

Release Notes: January Updates to FrontlineCloud

We recently completed a team retreat, in which we discussed our strategic vision for the future of our Frontline products. You'll see a number of major improvements coming throughout 2014 to our products. We've even created a web page so you can keep track of them over time: New Features and Updates in FrontlineCloud. Back in the office, we did a short, 1-week improvement sprint and challenged our developer team to make as many useful improvements as they could in that time. We're impressed with their output, and we think you'll find the below improvements will make the application even easier for you to use.

Release Notes: Our Latest Updates to FrontlineSMS

Release Notes: Our Latest Updates to FrontlineSMS

We are excited to announce a new release of FrontlineSMS, our free and open-source desktop product. When we launched FrontlineCloud, we made a promise to continue to develop and support our desktop application. Thanks to generous support from the Open Society Foundations, we have released Version 2.3, which has a number of particularly exciting features and improvements. 

2014: Our Most Ambitious Year Yet

2014: Our Most Ambitious Year Yet

We want to say thank you to all of our users and supporters for a tremendous and inspiring 2013. Your ideas, input, and investments helped us achieve so many accomplishments over the past year: we topped 100,000 downloads with FrontlineSMS. We launched FrontlineCloud. We received a Google Impact Award for our work with our partner Landesa to secure land rights for 80,000 families in India.

A bit more about FrontlineCloud: announcing a new blog post series

A bit more about FrontlineCloud: announcing a new blog post series

FrontlineCloud has been out in beta for just over a month, and we’re proud to have over 450 users signed up already, sending and receiving thousands of messages. The newest addition to the Frontline product set has had an incredibly warm and supportive reception on social media and in the many lovely emails we’ve received from friends, users and donors. To everyone who has retweeted, liked, emailed and signed up to look around, a huge thank you.

FrontlineCloud: Now with Twilio! Our September Release Notes

FrontlineCloud: Now with Twilio! Our September Release Notes

Every few weeks, as we release new improvements and features, we'll let you know on this blog about all of the updates to FrontlineCloud. If you’re curious about our development process, you can read my colleague Sitati’s excellent blog post on the subject, Our Brand of ‘Agile’.

Introducing FrontlineCloud

Introducing FrontlineCloud

Today, we’re proud to introduce FrontlineCloud: the next generation of FrontlineSMS, the world’s most popular professional text message management platform. It’s been a little while since you’ve heard from us, and there’s a reason for that: we’ve been listening and we’ve been building.