Sandbox: Social and Mobile
There’s really nothing much new regarding integrating mobile to social networks. This has been done with microblogging sites such as Twitter and Plurk wherein you send an SMS to update your status. For photo uploads, I remember before I tried uploading a photo to Flickr from my mobile phone using the Shozu app. But what’s good about it is that the social network is localized.
Features of Sandbox
- post a blog (via web only)
- update your status (via web only)
- send private messages
- add friends
- post photos (via web or mms)
- post videos (via web or mms)
- create/join groups
- engage in discussions within a group
- create mobi sites
- follow a mobi site
- access news
- check out downloadable mobile content
- forums
- chat (coming soon)
- and more!
The mobile part of uploading content to Sandbox is restricted in a way that you can only use your Smart mobile number. I would not expect this to be open (mobile uploading of content via mms) to other networks since this is developed by Smart Telecommunications.
Here are my suggestions in improving the site based from a web developer’s point of view:
The Web UI
The web UI for Sandbox My Groups can still be improved. The main content area should not be in an iframe IMHO. A pager for the Fanspeak portion of Sandbox is highly recommended when browsing the groups you’ve joined.
Quality Control for Content
I hope they put a Flag content for every user-generated content. Let’s face it, not all photos/videos uploaded on the Internet are not disturbing or are not suitable for minor audiences.
API
I suggest Sandbox to have an API that can be used by other developers. For instance, I uploaded a video here but I also wanted it to be available in YouTube without re-uploading the video, it would be great to post the video to YouTube using the API.
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[...] Aside from Globe prepaid subscribers, Smart prepaid subscribers will also be able to enjoy this at a higher price though, for 25 pesos for 24 hours. But if Smart subscribers would want something for free, then they could consider using Sandbox. [...]