Mockup Demo and Prototype of miXXerS

I built a prototype for our social website (miXXerS). Below are some screenshots with simple descriptions. (Double click the picture to see the legible one).

We also did a demonstration video of our prototype website. This video is narrated by our team member Liam. Thanks for recording Liam!

Homepage: part 1

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The navigation bar and carousel effect (made by Javascript). The carousel is made of three pictures and each picture has some context with a link button.

Homepage: part 2

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Three headings show the newest party, popular DJs and musicians and popular music automatically. You can click the “view detail” button to view the detailed information for each heading below.

Party page:

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This page shows the parties that will happen soon. Each party event is listed by theme, time, location. You click the “Search on Google Map” link for to search for the location. You can also find out where a DJ or musician will be playing and buy ticket either via paypal links or external ticket sites like Eventbrite or Ticketmaster. The DJ and Musician’s name is a link so you view her/his profile.

DJ page:

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This page show each DJ’s profile. His name, the genres of his music, occupation(s), Instruments and year active. There is a “Events” link, this link navigate to event page. There is also a feature that allows you to book the DJ/musician’s services.

Event page:

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This page shows the events this DJ will attend. You can click for more detailed information for each event.

Find music page:

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This page is used for users to find the music they want. Input the name in search bar to find the music or to click the alphabet.

About us page: Those that are checking out the demo of our site can find out more about us here!

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Ethical Ways to Attract Visitors To Our Site

For a social website, especially  a new website, it is important to know how to attract more visitors.  We have thought about this and found some useful and also ethical suggestions from Forbes where this information is sourced.

  1. Focus on content creation. Good content markets itself. When you put the effort into building and promoting great pieces of content, the natural result is more traffic to your website via shares and referrals.
  2. Add social sharing buttons to your website. Don’t assume that your readers will take the initiative to share your content on their own. Instead, make it easy for your site to accrue more visitors from social networking sites by adding social sharing buttons to your company’s blog posts.
  3. Answer questions on social networking sites. When you see people asking questions online, provide whatever helpful information you can. Doing so will earn you both website traffic and customers for life.
  4. Distribute press releases for actual achievements. While you shouldn’t abuse press release distribution websites to promote insignificant accomplishments, take advantage of this traffic stream whenever you have something noteworthy to share.
  5. Use SEO responsibly. Don’t over-optimize your website, but do make use of current SEO best practices (which put the emphasis on looking “natural”) to let the search engines know where they should list your site in the natural search results. High rankings will result in plenty of new visitors to your website.
  6. Invest in your website’s blog. By publishing high-value posts consistently, you’ll build your relationship with your readers, resulting in visitors who check back frequently to view your latest posts.
  7. Share slide decks and other presentations. Posting informative materials to sites like Slideshare will help you to increase both brand awareness and website traffic through exposure to new markets and new potential customers.
  8. Build a killer email newsletter. When readers find valuable email newsletters, they tend to share them with others. If your current email followup sequence is lackluster, making improvements here could result in significantly more referral traffic.
  9. Publish a helpful podcast. Similarly, producing a regular, high-quality podcast will increase referred website visitors, while reaching new visitors through podcast directories.
  10. Deploy infographics. Infographics get shared more often than most other types of content. This makes them ideal candidates for traffic generation campaigns that make use of content marketing.
  11. Run a YouTube channel. YouTube is one of the web’s largest search engines, making it a great way to expose new audiences to your brand.
  12. Ask visitors to share your site with others. Simply asking your visitors to forward your articles to others or share them on their social networking profiles is a great way to quickly boost page views.
  13. Write guest posts for top industry sites. Ask other websites in your industry if you can pen guest posts for their blogs. Having your content featured there isn’t just great for traffic – it’s a good way to build your perceived authority as well.
  14. Connect with influencers in your niche. Having an authority figure in your industry share just one of your blog articles can result in a tremendous amount of new traffic, subscribers and buyers, so make relationship building a key part of your company’s marketing strategy.
  15. Pay attention to up-and-coming social networks. Newer social networks likeTumbler and Pinterest are sprouting up all the time. Because there can be a significant “first adopter” advantage to the people that establish a presence on these sites early on, keep an eye out for these future opportunities.
  16. Eliminate website errors. If the search engines aren’t able to index your website properly (which can occur due to a number of different errors), you may not be receiving all the search traffic you should be.
  17. Add pillar content to your website. Every website should have at least a few pieces of “pillar” content — in-depth, well-written content that will always be of interest to readers — to help drive traffic via person-to-person sharing.
  18. Over-deliver on your company’s products or services. From a word-of-mouth traffic standpoint, over-delivering can’t be beat. When you go above and beyond in your industry, customers will recommend you to others – leading to more traffic and a higher marketing ROI.
  19. Interview experts within your industry. People love hearing from experts, so if you can snag an interview and publish it on your site, you’re in for a big surge of traffic from the authority’s existing audience.
  20. Comment on other websites. Leaving valuable comments on other websites’ blogs can be a great way to build traffic back to your own site. Just be sure to say more in your comment than, “Great post!” or “Thanks for sharing!”

Reference: http://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2012/08/31/20-easy-ethical-ways-to-attract-more-website-visitors/

What is Web 2.0?

Web 2.0 is the current state of online technology as it compares to the early days of the Web.

The features of web 2.0 include:

1. More user interactivity and collaboration

2.Easy to connect

3. Communicate efficiently

One of the most significant differences between Web 2.0 and the traditional World Wide Web (www, retroactively referred to as Web 1.0) is greater collaboration among Internet users, content providers and enterprises. In the past, users can only view and download the data or content on the webpage. But now, users can edit or create the data to make them to be a part of the website.

The History of Web 2.0
The foundational components of Web 2.0 are the advances enabled by Ajax and other applications such as RSS and Eclipse and the user empowerment that they support.

Darcy DiNucci, an information architecture consultant, coined the term “Web 2.0 In her 1999 article, “Fragmented Future”:

“The Web we know now, which loads into a browser window in essentially static screenfuls, is only an embryo of the Web to come. The first glimmerings of Web 2.0 are beginning to appear, and we are just starting to see how that embryo might develop. The Web will be understood not as screenfuls of text and graphics but as a transport mechanism, the ether through which interactivity happens.”

Tim O’Reilly is generally credited with popularizing the term, following a conference dealing with next-generation Web concepts and issues held by O’Reilly Media and MediaLive International in 2004. O’Reilly Media has subsequently been energetic about trying to copyright “Web 2.0” and holds an annual conference of the same name.

 

Reference :

http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/Web-20-or-Web-2

Technology and Social Networks

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Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instant messaging, Video conferencing, Web meetings: These and many other collaboration and social media platforms are now an everyday part of people’s lives around the world. Why this phenomenon happened?

1. People want to change the traditional ways of communicating and chase new and interesting forms.

2. The Internet makes these kind of instant communication possible via social media

3. Computers and smart phones have become necessary things in our life.

How does social media makes our lives different?

1. Building a new culture

2. Making the communication more efficiently

3. Providing more interesting learning experiences

4. Sharing personal opinions

5. Changing traditional way on finding jobs

So, we want to build a new social network including these features to improve people’s lives. What we want to build is a website for musicians/DJs and party information.  With respect to DJs, this is a musical subculture; it is an important part of a party. Second, we will provide a platform for DJ culture lovers to communicate. Third, you will learn more about DJs musicians and music through our website. Fourth, you can make your comments in particular zone. Fifth, we provide party information. If you are a DJ, you can find a job through the site.

Because the social networks are based on modern Internet, different new technologies will shape the features of social media. According to the related articles. These technologies shape social networks:

1. Arduio

2. RFID Tags and Transponders

3. Geomagnetic Sensors in Mobile Devices

4. Optical Pattern Recognition and Augmented Reality

5. OpenID,OAuth and Identity Graph

6. Mind Reading

7. Natural language processing

We could adopt these technologies, but we do not have to. Depending on the design of our social network we will adopt the appropriate technology.