Hootsuite - Mobile App - Roomies Mobile Chat

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Inspiration

During the VanHackathon we decided to take the Mobile App Challenge from HootSuite. The inspiration came out during one of the several times that we went to the mall with our wifes. We we realized that several of others guys had the same behavior. Wait until the girls looks for something. We tought that a chat application that shows rooms based on location would show us who is in the mall, what's going on and peharps look for good discounts or some opportunities, like some event in that day.

What it does

This app is based in geo-location. It uses many features of the most know apps in the market, like chat and location, to put give the user the opportunity to join chat rooms that he only can if he is in that area. Let's say you're in some beach in Recife, Brazil. The app would show you the rooms: Recife, Boa Viagem (the neighbohood) and some bar near the sand. You can reach the menu of beverages and foods without calling anyone and talk with people in that chat regarding good options.

How we built it

We used IONIC framework, as we're good in AngularJS, but not so good in Mobile Apps. This framework helps us to still developing for web, but build apps for mobile devices. Also we used Firebird database, with websocket communication to start the conversations. Our idea was using a Python Flask backend using Redis and Socket.IO communication, but due some issues, we needed to stop this development.

Challenges we ran into

1 - Create a Chat App. We never did one before. 2 - Perform login in several different social networks, we never did that by a mobile app.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The prototype ables us to run some rooms in localhost, but in production we can access at lease 1 room and send, receive messages.

What we learned

It's not that simple to create a chat app.

What is not implemented

We could not implement offline messages and more than one room, due issues related to Socket.io and Heroku server. We have a server there responsible to register rooms and users, but due the heroku vs socket.io issue, we could not use this server. At least not until the last day of the hackathon.

The Team

Artur - Backedn (Python, and the backend) Everton (squaq) - Frontend, the app based in IONIC. Pedro - The UI/UI guy. Big part of the idea came from him.

What's next for Hootsuite - Roomies Mobile Chat

After this hackathon, we really want to keep building the app, and fix all issues related to servers. Our goal is to implement several features and launch the app. It'll be like a IRC app for mobile devices that helps you to find chat rooms based in your location.