The protection of personal information is an integral part of every business model. However, implementing it in a collaborative context while protecting the privacy and control of all stakeholders can be challenging. Divum has over a decade of expertise developing software that manages data privacy while enabling enterprises and individuals to collaborate securely on shared objectives. We have recently designed a social collaboration platform bringing the finest experiences to its users while prioritizing their safety and privacy.
Overview:
The app provides access to Live Local Commerce, Social Content Feeds (for both the creation and consumption of content) and Chat with distinct experiences for Work, Personal, and Public Chat. We built the product for Android and iOS platforms along with the entire backend engineering and application for platform Administration & Content Management. The app is developed keeping the development of 3rd party extensions in mind so that the community can build their Social Media Plugins and online games & can monetize the application with these extensions. The platform has received more than 5 Lakh downloads on Google Play Store.
Problem Statements:
- Existing social networking and chat applications leverage collected users’ data for monetization via Ads and more.
- Users’ data privacy is a big concern in most of the existing social media, networking and chat applications.
- Need for a tech platform that can enable hyperlocal commerce interactions within the local community and drive business for small retailers/service providers.
- The key challenges were to build a data privacy-focused social collaboration platform with capabilities of integrating online gaming/e-commerce and provide a platform for 3rd party services development that boosts the growth and success of the app.
Key Solution:
When developing at Divum, we had to account for real-time requirements, information and data availability, real-time communication channels & integration with third-party apps. Our solution was developed in consideration of the above considerations and is technically compatible with free-to-use social networking and a chat application. Our solution is highly scalable and extensible while allowing developers to integrate their own applications as plugins or extensions to our core application.
What did we do?
- Designed & developed the entire app: Website, Android & iOS application with API integration of 3rd party services.
- Built the backend integration of all 3rd party services and APIs: Video streaming, Social Content Feeds (create and consume), and Live Local Commerce through the app.
- Built a Client-Server architecture for Feed API: All Feed (Content) Data is stored on the server and updated on every user request following users’ likes/dislikes through private key encryption. So if the user breaks their password, they cannot access any previously entered data as it’s been encrypted using a key only known to the server.
- We have created a first-of-its-kind User Experience with the option to engage with different social networks, Personal Networks, Professional Networks or Public networks via different user persona modes.
- Built the product for Android and iOS platforms and the entire backend engineering and application for platform Administration & Content Management.
How was it solved?
The product was designed to function without collecting any PII from users, with the exception of the minimum information required for regulatory compliance.
- No user data was utilized for advertising purposes.
- Users can easily switch between different personas, such as Personal, Work and Public personas, to keep the data segregated.
- We developed a novel architecture for the delivery of content. We use symmetric key encryption to protect the data from unauthorized access during the data movement from the server to the mobile device.
- The product's backend is highly scalable, allowing us to scale with user demand without jeopardizing the security of user data.
- All User Interfaces were developed by merging numerous technologies while keeping in mind the demands and requirements of our end users.
- We constructed an immersive social networking and chat application that enables users to engage in various online games, Social Media, video streaming, and real-time discussions via the programme.
- We have developed an OAuth2 technology for authenticating users across various platforms and seamlessly integrating with various 3rd party services & APIs.
Technology:
- The Android application is developed using Java and Kotlin.
- The iOS application is built through Objective-C and Xcode.
- We used Google Firebase as our Realtime Database (for Android) and similar services to house our Social Content feeds for Android and iOS applications.
- We hosted all of our backend services on NxtGen Servers since they provide a scalable and cost-effective option for serving millions of people around the world.
