Yesterday I wrote about how we’ve integrated AusStage with Twitter so that we can use the Mobile Service to collect live audience participation feedback using the Mobile Service. These services are being developed as part of the Aus-e-Stage project, which is part of the larger AusStage project, and are components of the Audience Participation Feedback service.

In this post I’m going to focus on how we’ve integrated AusStage with Short Message Service (SMS) messages. SMS messages are one of the three ways that we plan on gathering feedback which are:

1. Short Message Service – every mobile phone has at least this capability
2. Twitter – users of twitter can provide feedback using Twitter from their smartphone or other mobile device
3. Mobile Web – users of smartphones or other mobile devices can use a website optimised for mobile devices to submit feedback

The components that integrated AusStage with SMS messages are as follows:

1. A Mobile Modem – used to connect to the mobile phone network
2. A script on the AusStage server that interfaces with the modem to send and receive SMS messages
3. The Input Gatherer API of the Mobile Service – processes incoming SMS messages and stores them in the AusStage database

The workflow for processing SMS messages is outlined in the diagram below:

Importantly the mobile phone number of the audience member is obfuscated using  a cryptographic hash function. In this way no personally identifying information is kept in the AusStage database or in any related log files. By using a hash it is possible to group messages together in order to identify the same audience member has sent in multiple pieces of feedback, however it is not possible to personally identify them.

In the above workflow an exception report is generated when no matching performance can be found in the AusStage database. An exception report can also be generated as a result of an error such as the database not being available. In this case an email is sent which contains a brief message about the error that occurred and a copy of the message and associated metadata. This will provide sufficient information for a member of the AusStage team to take remedial action as required. For example adding the message text and associated metadata in manually once the database becomes available.

Once data is stored in the AusStage database it can be used for things such as data analysis or displayed on a web page that would provide live feedback at the venue using part of the Mobile Service API that is currently under development.

The photo “SMS” was uploaded to Flickr by Eliacim Lopes and used under the terms of a Creative Commons License.