Phone validation / verification questions

I wrote a module that I'd like to submit to everyone. It does simple phone verification. It allows a member (or during signup?) to enter their phone number. The "module" then calls them and delivers a PIN code. The member enters the PIN code on the next screen. Here are my questions....

I can limit the calls made from 1 IP or user (by time or whatever). It's set to retry 1 time in 1 minute. I do keep records of all calls, etc.

1. Should I give the member a badge? Upgrade them? Give more time?

2. I can give the module away for free, but, it uses my servers to make the calls.  How should I charge for the calls? I can charge, lets say 5 cents a call, and people can prepay for 100 calls.. Something like that? Any better ideas? 

3. Should I offer custom messages like "This is the boonex validation service, your pin code is 84838." for a fee, or just a generic "Your pin code is 94949"? 

4. Any other ideas?

I can incorporate all sorts of cool stuff at this point like conference calls, voice mailboxes, etc....

Mike

Just use it for join function. With unique I'd. This email sign up process it getting old. Where is the module? I want to try it for my app but I need to understand how it work on backend . just send SMS with verification code. 

SMS is a good idea. I'll add that. I'll let you know when its ready for public testing.

 It is until you start thinking about the cost associated with an sms gateway or phone calls, and try to pass those charges on to users of your module.  Phone/SMS is great for niche applications, but I honestly don't see a big demand for it. A lot of potential site members, might also be a little hesitant about providing a cell phone number to a website. Sure, you can send a free sms without using a gateway, but then you have to get signups to give up their cell phone number and the name of their service provider.

I already have a gateway so I don't need the provider, just the number.

I would think if a website looks decent, people wont mind this type of validation. It depends on the type of site you are running. You can always just give badges or something defining a member as 'validated' instead of using it as a signup validation.

I'm using 5 cents as an example. I haven't figured the cost yet. If you have 1000 members validating at at 5 cents each... its only $50.

USA & Canada will probably be more like 2 cents per call or SMS.

In my country I get 3000 SMS in 3$ for a month. It can work if I have the setup here but only for app version of my website. Facebook connect don't work unless u have native app and mine is hybrid. So this solution for signup sound reasonable for me.

 If I were you, I wouldn't give the module away for free,  If somebody has a website where telephone/sms verification is attractive to them, they shouldn't have a problem paying for it.  Between  $50 and $100 sounds  like a reasonable price to me... maybe more depending on features.  You could include 500 - 1000 messages or so in the initial price.  I will tell you though, If I were the one using something like this, I would want it to work with my own account via an sms gateway known to me, like clickatel... not some unknown person running a gateway because they can.

In your TOS, you'll also need to make it perfectly clear to all parties what you are going to be doing with that list of phone numbers you'll be collecting through your system.  People will want assurances that their phone number will remain private and not used in spam campaigns.  Every single time I've given my cell phone number to a website so they could send me a confirmation number of some sort, in return I've gotten perpetual cell phone spam.

Since you will be processing personal information on your own server, and considering that as of now you only have three forum posts here on boonex.com, perhaps now would be a good time to introduce yourself.  I, for one, am a bit curious as to what your motivation is for offering a free module that you can use to collect peoples personal cell phone numbers.  Everybody has a plan... I'd just like to know what your is.

Good ideas! Ill fill out my profile tonight and Ill make a TOS etc. I'm pretty much retired, so - not much to say currently. I was a BBS sysop many years ago (multi line - huge) and am putting up a dolphin site for the fun of it. I wrote the module because I don't want to deal with spam and BS. I've been a programmer since the late 70's and retired about 15 years ago, so this is actually more fun than work. 

Maybe I could tie the app directly to a twilio.com account (or somewhere) that the webmaster owns... That way I'm out of the loop. The rates would still be decent too! 

Drop me a PM and I'll give you my phone number if you would like to toss this around a bit.

 That makes the most sense to me.  Then you're off the hook with any liabilities that may arise out of processing personal information like cell phone numbers.

Sooner or later, people around here will want you to then turn it into a module where the sms is sent for free using all the individual carriers email address they use for that purpose.  Whether or not you listen to those requests that I predict will happen, is up to you.... personally I think it would be senseless.   If somebody really needs something like this, they should use their own account at an sms gateway.

I have no foreseeable need for this, but if you ever decide to work on GPS/GPX stuff, I'll be all ears

Wondering if it is a professional forum where racist people like to abuse & bully other members and call them names. Nothing gona happen to others but people will stop coming here for solutions & sharing their experience with each other. 

Ok - now it works with twilio.com for voice and SMS. They are pretty cheap too!

I still have to:

Add the credentials to the admin module config.

Add some instructions. This way it will bypass me altogether.

Figure out what to actually "do" when a user passes the 'test'.

Pay Boonex $100 to upgrade my account so I can sell this.

I might:

Have it say the voice call in different languages - like "Thanks for using xyz's validation system. Your pin code is...".

Sounds like a solid plan.  The market here on boonex.com sure can use more modules for business oriented sites, and I'm sure there are Dolphin users that will welcome something like this. 

Almost done....

Finished:

  Add all of the settings and twilio credentials to the admin module config.

  Add some instructions.

  Have it say the voice call in different languages.

Any Ideas on:

  Figure out what to actually "do" when a user passes the 'test'. (add time, give badge, upgrade?)

  Should I add a limit per day on retries per user so they can't make millions of calls? (Or other idea?)

  Anything else to add?

It seems to be working fine. If anyone wants to try it out, PM me and Ill send you a URL. It's only set for US and Canadian 10 digit calling right now but can be opened up to anywhere. As it is, it does voice and SMS and upgrades your profile from Approval to Active.

I've been asked the prices for usage. You have to pay $1/month for a phone number. For USA outbound, each SMS(Txt) is $0.0075 and each call is $0.015.

For other countries:

SMS(Txt) ->   https://www.twilio.com/sms/pricing

Voice ->   https://www.twilio.com/voice/pricing