Comments on: FrontlineSMS: Now with Forms

By: Ken Banks

Ken Banks — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 12:28:36 +0000

@giantpandinha Not everyone can afford Android phones in the field. Here's the launch post. Forms still work in progress. http://is.gd/5QVDJ

By: Mai Odonnell

Mai Odonnell — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 07:52:16 +0000

FrontlineSMS: Now with Forms | Build it Kenny, and they will come… http://tinyurl.com/ylft38v

By: Matt Kim

Matt Kim — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:46:48 +0000

FrontlineForms will surely make FrontlineSMS really good. Thanks for this.

By: Afrika og small software « Ind i Afrika

Afrika og small software « Ind i Afrika — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 13:02:37 +0000

[...] often for free. One of the most interesting recent applications built for the developing world, FrontlineForms, is targeted specifically at low- to mid-level mobile [...]

By: Matthias-Matienzo

Matthias-Matienzo — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 00:21:03 +0000

Great idea, but will this work over the long run?

By: Chipping away at the SMS literacy barrier

Chipping away at the SMS literacy barrier — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 23:33:17 +0000

[...] all the excitement surrounding Monday’s launch of FrontlineForms, we almost forgot the other improvements we’ve made to the FrontlineSMS software. As well as [...]

By: Max Kpodjedo

Max Kpodjedo — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 11:17:37 +0000

Congratulations to you and your team Ken for this achievement. this makes FLsms even better.
great pic from Erik (of the boy… empowered i would say by FLsms)

By: o/ FrontLineSMS new release « talk-share-learn

o/ FrontLineSMS new release « talk-share-learn — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 10:59:13 +0000

[...] You can read more on afromusing, an interesting blog on innovation, technology and beyond or on Ken’s blog. [...]

By: kiwanja

kiwanja — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 10:24:13 +0000

@Michael – Again, I agree with everything you say. One of the pillars of my work, and something I blog about often, is the need for “long tail” applications – which is where FrontlineSMS is pitched – to run on readily available hardware. I agree that an SMS server is useful and could have great potential, and we’ve been looking at doing something like that with FrontlineSMS for some time. RapidSMS/FrontlineSMS folk are in regular contact, so there are strong opportunities that collaboration will emerge. At the end of the day, we’re all focused on trying to help solve some of the more pressing problems out there, and end-users don’t necessarily care what the technology is, as long as it works and they can use it

@Stephane – I also agree with what you say! We deliberately made Forms and end-to-end SMS solution because there aren’t many truly usable SMS forms products out there for NGOs. There are a number which utilise GPRS, of course. So although GPRS is certainly technically the better option (and a cheaper one!), for many FrontlineSMS users this remains a luxury. Saying that, the early alpha version of Forms did have GPRS support, but because of configuration challenges and our initial focus on SMS, we removed it to keep the application as simple as possible. The only configuration needed is to enter the SMS number for the FrontlineSMS hub. As you know, I’m very much focused on building tools which can be used today – other people can do the hard work and figure out what the future looks like. Watch this space for GPRS to re-enter at some stage in the future, though!

By: 27 months » The Virtues of Small Software

27 months » The Virtues of Small Software — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 18:22:59 +0000

[...] often for free. One of the most interesting recent applications built for the developing world, FrontlineForms, is targeted specifically at low- to mid-level mobile [...]

By: Mobile phones: ringing the changes? « BBC World Service Trust blog

Mobile phones: ringing the changes? « BBC World Service Trust blog — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:21:18 +0000

[...] on a large scale), this week also announced a major new development in their services; FrontlineForms, which aims to “give grassroots NGOs the opportunity to try out mobile data collection with the [...]

By: Stephane Boyera

Stephane Boyera — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 08:49:27 +0000

Hi Ken,
that’s a great addition to frontlineSMS. The user interface of sms-based services is, imho, one of the strongest weakness of SMS. So your addon is making a significant step in this direction.
That said, i’ve a similar comments on what was said previously around GPRS.
Because now you are requiring a java-enabled phone then you are putting the bar higher than with plain sms service. This is ok on my side, but then afaik, there is no phones that are java-enabled and not gprs enabled. so this is an important fact.
Then, another very interesting fact you might know is that GPRS access is usually around 5 time cheaper than sms. The prices of each character sent is cheaper. So this is a fact to consider in the future.
Now let’s move to the next step; if you have a java-enabled phone and GPRS, why are you developing a specific client and a specific server, instead of just relying on a web plateform ? things like opera mini offers an abstraction layer, and a development environment which is far richer, and far easier to use and maintain for the client. but the biggest gain is on the server side, where providers of the services don’t need anymore a computer gsm modem and so on, but could just rely on a web hosting services. So what you developed could be just a web/php plateform. This would dramatically decrease the cost of the service provider (the ngo), and might even decrease the cost of the user (the one collecting data on the phones).

To conclude, there is imho a wide range of potential solution, and based on the local condition of the project, one might be more appropriate than other. I believe frontlineSMS is helping lots of ngo nowadays, but it might be interesting to start thinking migrating it to a new technology !
Cheers
Steph