Hoiio Developer Blog

It was only when I spoke to the guys from x-Dengue that I understood Singapore has an ongoing dengue fever.

In 2012, the number of dengue cases was 4,632.

But in the first 5 months of 2013, there were already 7,000 dengue cases. That is around 300% increase!

It is an ongoing dengue fever, and we all have a part to play to protect ourselves, and our loved ones.

Firstly, you should know the dengue clusters. NEA has a map for that, but I prefer the one from x-Dengue that uses Google Map.

You can also download x-Dengue iPhone app, and register your family members so that they will be alerted via SMS when they are in a dengue cluster.

Fight dengue. Stay heathy.

Hey friends in Singapore,

Ever wish for a way to skip the queue during the busy lunch hour? Well, Hastify FastPass promises just that.

http://www.hastify.com

Hastify is a Singapore based Tech Startup focusing on F&B innovations. Their first product, FastPass, is e-ordering solutions for restaurants to grow their lunch time sales. For users, the main appeal of the service is to skip the lunch queue and save time.

Here’s how it works.

Yup. Simple and cool service created by a brilliant team with communications powered using Hoiio API.

My sister loves shopping and works in the town area. Often, she will have sandwiches for lunch so that she can skip the lunch queue and spend the time shopping instead. I am introducing her to Hastify so that she can have both a hot meal and lunch-time shopping. Cheers =)

If you run a business and deal with part-time/temp/contract workers, you may often face a sudden manpower shortfall due to workers reporting sick in the morning.

When that happens, it is a sure recipe to make your blood boils as you scramble to find replacements.

http://www.Subhunter.com.au

Let me introduce SubHunter, a neat app that calls your part-time workers on your behalf, fully automatically!

How’s how it works.

Yup. An interesting app created by a brilliant guy in Australia, using Hoiio’s Communication API.

Do check out SubHunter and try for free. Cheers =)

Hey all food lovers in Singapore,

Will like to introduce an iPhone App that rewards you whenever you craves good food =)

This app is named Around! and has recently been showcase in Digital Life as well as topped the charts on Singapore iPhone AppStore Lifestyle categories.

What makes them so good? Plenty of good food Around! =) Yummy!

Around! is one of the first startup using the Hoiio API to power up the communication aspects of their application. We are glad to have grown with them and wishes them all the best. Cheers.

http://www.around.com.sg/

PS: Do try out the fish in the picture. It is very yummy!

Apple recently announced the dates for its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), and took just 2 hours to sell out.

This time, Apple released the tickets at slightly-less-than-godly hour of 5:30 a.m. Pacific Time Wednesday.  That means you are probably still be in bed, if you work in the Pacific time zone.

Not everyone lets Apple decide their fate.

Kudos to Hon Cheng, a developer who hacked up a WWDC alert that checks the Apple’s website every 1 minute. When the Apple website changes and opens up the ticketing, Hon Cheng uses Hoiio API to send him an SMS, plus a phone call!

Check out the video of the WWDC alert!

Singapore is a food capital with restaurants serving food from around the world. With the huge variety of restaurants, it can be hard to pick one out. After you found the ideal place to eat, booking is a must at popular restaurants to ensure that you have a seat when you arrive. Abratable is a site that lets you search for restaurants in Singapore and then book it on the spot, all from within their site.

When you book a table, Abratable makes use of Hoiio API to send an SMS to the restaurant to notify them of your booking.

From what we have heard, they even have plans to integrate IVR and other voice services in the future.

Hey friends,

Let’s welcome our first Vietnamese company using Hoiio API: Biaki, with its product is BiakiCRM.

BiakiCRM is a cross platform solution on the cloud to help small businesses manage customers information and relationships, gather all vital information in a single click with no limitation on accessing devices and busines model.

It’s a complete CRM system with highly flexible user interface where customer can modify to fit the business nature of the company.

Features that BiakiCRM provides include:

• Manage customers and customer relationships.
• E-Office: help users schedule the work and remind, notify users.
• SMS and email marketing
• Social network within the company
• … and lot more features

Moreover, BiakiCRM  provides access to the system through mobile phone. With its iPhone app (Android version is coming soon), business manager can manage the system on the go which helps to boost the productivity of the business.

We are glad that Biaki integrated Hoiio SMS API to strengthen their product. The API is used for sms marketing, user verification, group sms, sms reminder …

Their product is mostly used in Vietnamese, but they also have an English version. So do check out their product at http://www.biaki.com.

Cheers =)

NUS Hackers organized Hack & Roll 2012 (a 24 hour hackthon from 19th Feb 1pm to 20th Feb 1pm) to encourage students to build apps that would benefit the NUS community. The Hoiio API team supported the event by offering a special signup for the participants so that they can use their free $10SGD credits without trial restrictions, i.e. they can use their credits to sms/call any number.

The following apps built during the hackathon made use of Hoiio API:

• Geek Rave by team N-Team is a web app that allows students to show off their projects and have other students “rave” about it. When someone raves about your project, you’ll get an SMS notification.
• Vigilance by Semantics3 is a mobile Android app that sends SMS alerts to parents when their child/ward is in a dangerous area.
• Cab 2gether by team GiveUsPlaybooks! is application for people who want to share cabs.

Additional coverage and results of the event can be found at e27.

Edit: added links to blog post by Semantics3

Hey all drivers.

Will like to introduce you all to a new online service for Car Rental. We all know Car Rental, they operates in hard to reach places and sometime you travel all the way to rent a car and then find out that they are all rented out. And there is simply no easy way to compare and get the best deal. Cheers, we have now found the solution in Drive.SG, the friendly portal to find the best car rental deal for that special occasion.

https://www.drive.sg/

I am also glad that they are using the Hoiio API to empower their products. To help enhance communication between drivers and car rental companies, DriveSG has integrated a series of automated SMS and Voice communication tools.

Hence, when you register for DriveSG, please ensure that your phone number is valid. With this phone number, DriveSG will be able to provide timely information on your car rental for you via SMS and phone calls. Cheers.

Hey all drivers.

Will like to introduce you all to the Smart way to renew your car Insurance. Recently, I have also use this service to get new quotations for my 3 year old Kia Cerato Forte. And the offering is pretty good and the service is great. They even have a cute lady with a nice voice calling me at the end of the day to ask me if I needed any further help on my car insurance renewal =) Personal and Cool.

http://www.smartinsurance.sg/

I am also glad that they are using the Hoiio API to empower their products. You see, to prevent the cute lady from losing her coolness and her nice voice, they have also setup a Number Authentications systems to filter the real human buyers from all the noises on the Internet. Pretty cool trick =)