miXXerS Copyright Policy

Posted on April 26, 2015 by shirlyn2

It is important for users to be well aware of copyright policy page. miXXerS respects intellectual property rights and expects its users to do the same. If content submitted by users in miXXerS infringes copyrighted work, you may submit a report via a web form which gives us a notice of any alleged copyright infringement.

A notification of alleged copyright infringement must be addressed to miXXerS’ copyright agent as listed above. Please include as much detail as possible to allow us to identify the facts or circumstances, including, where possible:

A physical or electronic signature of the owner (or person authorised to act on behalf of the owner) of the copyright that is allegedly infringed;
Specific identification of each copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed;
A description of where the material believed to be infringing is located on miXXerS or the miXXerS Websites (please be as detailed as possible and provide a URL to help us locate the material you are reporting);
Contact information for the complaining party, such as a complete name, address, telephone number, and email address;
A statement that the complaining party has a good faith belief that use of the work(s) in the manner complained of is not authorised by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; and
A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and that the complaining party is the owner of the right that is allegedly infringed, or agent for the owner.

Furthermore, miXXerS has a policy to terminate in appropriate circumstances the accounts of subscribers who are repeat infringers.

Introducing Networx7 (Video) – Why miXXerS?

Link

We all met in the Mountbatten lunch room to check the demo for our site and take some photos and videos for the introductory video Kay did, which we also hope to use in the Dragon’s Den. You can see the result above 🙂 Liam also did the narration for our web demo and we went through the remaining work that we have to do. Enjoy the video! What better way to introduce us and our project could there be than actually using YouTube to do it! (By Keisha Taylor)

Terms and Conditions, Privacy and Trust

Posted on April 25, 2015 by shirlyn2

Below is a summary of our privacy policy. We will adhere to the mischance principle and the voluntary principle for our site as outlined by Robert L. McArthur (2001). miXXerS cannot feasibly be reasonable for the privacy of information that can easily be discovered. Users that want to anonymise or encrypt their communication would not be able to use miXXers and it is inevitable that records will be left in caches, cookies and servers as with all websites. In addition to gain users trust we will be transparent on how information is being used in line with Weitzner et al (2008). We will also adhere to the EU’s Data Protection Directive, which is also internationally regarded as one of the most stringent data privacy laws globally. By adhering to this standard we will not only be able to expand successfully in Europe but also internationally and in a way which respects the privacy of our users. In addition given the difficult users face in reading privacy policies (McDonald, A. and Cranor, L. 2008) we will attempt to make our policies as user friendly as possible and let users know whenever we have made a change to our policy. However given the service is free to users there will inevitably be a privacy trade off and this will entail some level of risk management on the part of our users (Dunfee T et al. 1999).

miXXerS’ Web Application is about the sharing of anything that is related to music/events. A registration/login system is implemented so that only registered users are able to post/edit/delete/rate/comment on recipes. Moreover, music can be organised by categories, users can view any music update that under a specific category.

Users will be engaging in Policy based trust by signing up to our network and we will be utilising the concept of provenance based trust for the site (Moreau 2009). However reputation based trust is extremely important and so we must ensure we adhere to the policies that our users have signed onto to ensure that we do no risk our reputation, increase trust which would in turn support user growth.

Cookies: Our website uses “cookie” technology. A cookie is a small data file that is placed on the hard drive of your device such as laptop or mobile browsers when you a website. A “session cookie” expires immediately when you end your session (i.e., close your browser). The cookie allows us to recognize you or/and your device when you return to our website. You can disable cookies at any time by using your browser options; however, if you do not register with us, we will not able to recognize you as our MiXXer member.

Technology and Techniques to develop MiXXer Website:

Terms and Conditions

Welcome to miXXerS.com. This section will describe the standards and protocols as a Privacy Policy. As a visitor to miXXerS, your trust is our most important asset. This Privacy policy is provided to inform you of our policies and practices regarding how we collect, use, disclosure, transfer and store information about you.

Thanks for choosing miXXerS. In this policy, the words “we”, “our”, and “us” refer to miXXerS. In order to use our miXXerS service or website, miXXerS Limited may need to collect personally identifiable information and this Privacy Policy is where we describe the information we collect, how we use such information, and how you can manage and control the use of your information.

When using or interacting with our website, you are entering into a binding contract with us and consenting to the use of your information as explained in this Privacy Policy.

General Data

When you register for an account to use our service, we collect “personally identifiable information” or “personal information” mean any information by which you can be identified or contacted, such as your name (first and last), address (city, state, zip), e-mail address, telephone number, etc. We may store this information so that it can be used for the purposes in connecting you with others.We may also disclose your personally identifiable information when you ask us to do so or when we believe it is required by law.

Payment Data

When you sign up for a Premium Account that require payment subscription or make other purchases through the service, your credit card information and other financial data we need to process your payment are collected and stores by a third party payment processor.

We use your personal information that we collect to provide you with the best services and experience. We may also, (ii) communicate with you for Service-related purposes, including promotional e-mails, sponsorships or messages, (iii) enable and promote the Service, including features and content of the Service, and products and services made available through the Service such as sharing, user interactions, notifications and suggestions, and integration with third party services.

The miXXerS Service is a social service for music which offers many ways in searching, share the music or content related to music at music board, and we enable users to explore who else is using the Service and their public profiles.

Your account information is or may be publicly available to others by default, such as your name and/or username, profile picture, location, including the music you add or favourite. Your activity on the Service will automatically appear in the activity feed of friends and other users who follow you or your profile content.

References:

Dunfee T.W, Smith N. and Ross W.T. Social contracts and marketing ethics. The Journal of Marketing (1999) vol. 63 (3)

McDonald, A. and Cranor, L. The Cost of Reading Privacy Policies. I/S: A Journal of Law and Policy for the Information Society. 2008 Privacy Year in Review issue

Moreau. The foundations for provenance on the web. Foundations and Trends in Web Science (2009)

Weitzner DJ, Abelson H, Berners-Lee T, Feigenbaum J, Sussman GJ. Information Accountability, Communications of the ACM (2008) vol. 51 (6) pp. 82-87

Mobile Apps

Posted on April 25, 2015 by shirlyn2

You get a ton done when you’re at your computer, speeding away on the day’s social media strategy. In the last year alone, mobile payments apps has generated a total $235.4billion worldwide.

Mobile apps and tools can make it easier for a marketer’s entire day as it is filled with easier ways to tap opportunities to connect, engage and share. You can get more done while waiting, lounging, and at anytime when you’re not tethered to a desktop or laptop. The palm size, weightlessness and wireless technology that comes with mobile makes it convenient and primary for miXXerS users on the go,

It necessary for miXXerS’ future development that in addition to being a mobile first site we create mobile apps that enable users to log-on their account just by clicking a miXXerS app icon on the mobile screen. This allows all users to stay on top of the latest news or music posts, share music and all the service that we offers are now able to access from mobile apps.

In summary, you can enjoy complete page management controls like you can with the Facebook app, making life super easy for admins who need to make changes on the fly, while you’re on the go.

The following picture is the sample of the front page when you click on our future miXXerS app on your mobile.

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Figure 1: miXXerS Future Mobile App

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Figure 2: miXXerS Welcome Page After Click the miXXerS App Icon

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Figure 3: miXXerS Log-In Page (Only for the first time Log-in)

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Figure 4: One of the miXXerS App Functions

Figure 5: The User Profile and the user able to view their favourite music that they save

Figure 6: The user allows to share their piece of music with optional related details such as description of the songs, Location or event.

Notes: Figure 6 content such as location of events and songs will be provided based on users approval

Changing times: how social media has revolutionised the music industry

Posted on April 24, 2015 by Liam Walsh

It is a matter of years since music was generally only available in various physical forms such as CDs, or online in a select few places such as Napster. We have now reached the stage where music is available in a myriad of locations across the web and social media has certainly played its part in bringing the music industry to where it is now, therefore opening up a potential market for a social network like miXXerS.

The advent of social media has opened up an entirely new platform where artists can promote their music to a wide range of people, fans and potential fans alike. Artists can link fans to new music, inform them of upcoming music as well as promote any upcoming live events they may be performing at. We are at a point where you will likely hear any news about your favourite artists on social media before you hear or see it anywhere else. Features like Twitter’s trending topics highlight any recent news that has generated a lot of talk over social media. A big announcement from a music artist is likely to end up on this list. Outside of the music they produce, artists are able to promote themselves by interacting with their fans, something which social media has enabled on a much greater scale.

Case Study: Spor

Spor, the alter-ego for UK based drum and bass producer Jon Gooch, was created in 2006, taking the electronic music industry by storm. After a lengthy hiatus, Spor returned to the scene in February, immediately announcing his new and long awaited album, and sending drum and bass fans into a frenzy all over social media. Moving away from the traditional approach of releasing an album, Spor announced that he would be first releasing the album as a ‘pay as you want bundle’, where purchasers can choose the price they pay for the album, as a torrent through the BitTorrent bundles service. Spor further promoted his return to the drum and bass scene by doing an ‘ask me anything’ thread on the message board website, Reddit. Spor’s use of social media, from announcing his comeback and new album, to his interactions with his fans over a number of social networking platforms, enabled him to generate as much publicity and hype for his new release as possible.

Scenarios & Personas for miXXerS

Posted on April 23, 2015 by Keisha Taylor

I looked at a few other types of users that may use the site through creating personas.

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Scenario – Ed: Party producer

Background

Ed 30 is an event producer for a venue in London. He holds a bachelors degree in marketing. He is very active on social media. Though he loves music he does not produce it. His events are held bimonthly for difference genres including electronic music, hip hop and pop. While they are successful he wants to expand and reach out to new up and coming musicians and DJs on certain nights.

Story

Ed has premium membership because he will like to be able to use all the features of the site. He would login to his account via the home page and personalise his page by clicking what font, colors etc he would like to use on the page and how he would like to order it so that it best suits his audience. He will click on the advertise his events on the site by clicking the button advertise and then and add the name, of his event, the type of genre, location and where tickets can be bought. Given he has information about the audience via the graph that he can access and can gain anonymised information about what type of users are attending as they indicate they will attend and purchase tickets. He can then use that information to tailor the event as he arranges it and make more informed plans for future events

laughing-woman-by-eder-capobianco-creative-commons

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Scenario: Su: Party Goer (Competition Winner)

Background

Su is 23 and is an avid music lover. She is from Granada in Spain and is a student at the University of Granada. She loves going to live events and goes out all the time in Granada but rarely goes as much as she would like to larger events because they are held in larger cities. Since has a part time job in a bar so she can earn some extra money while she studies. She likes to dance and is everyone tends to love her.

Story

While trying to find out where her favorite band ‘Limitless’ is playing she finds out that there is the chance to win tickets to their concert in Madrid and Skype with the band on the miXXerS site. Though not the most popular band she really likes their music. She thinks it is very cool that you can get to actually more intimately engage with the band on miXXerS. She decides to take her chances and registers and apply. To her surprise she wins the prize and is featured on the site (with her permission) She tells everyone she knows about how cool she thinks miXXers is and encourages others in the Granada music scene with which she is familiar to use the site too. Her birthday is also coming up and she was planning to host a party and was looking for a DJ to play. She clicks on the link find DJ and read the reviews for those in her area that are into electronic music and salsa and pop music and books them for her birthday party.

Ethical Ways to Attract Visitors To Our Site

Posted on April 23, 2015 by chang

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.

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Publish a helpful podcast. Similarly, producing a regular, high-quality podcast will increase referred website visitors, while reaching new visitors through podcast directories.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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/

Group Members (self-made video)

Posted on April 23, 2015 by chang

I did a brief introductory video featuring all of us!

miXXerS Structure (self-made video)

Posted on April 23, 2015 by chang

While I did this brief video on the mockups. More details in blog named mockup by shimizu k.

Case Study: Scenarios and Personas

Posted on April 23, 2015 by Keina Shimizu

I created some persons based on the functionality of the site.

Scenario: Jonathan- semi pro musician and weekend DJ

dj2

Background:

Jonathan, 34, is a sales manager of an franchise company weekdays but he also works as a DJ if he has chances. He is contracted to Juno Record and though he has produced 1 CD he still strugges to success as a DJ. He needs to develop fun base, but how?

Story:

Jonathan’s first CD sales is not as good as he wanted. His friends advised him to build a fan base using social network. He wrote information about his CD and music event on his Facebook but basically only his friends saw that. Then he starts using miXXerS after visiting the site to check out some musical events in his area as he learnt about the site from his friends via Facebook.

He went to top page-function 6 registration (DJ/Band/event) and registered his information. Two days after he got an email from miXXerS admin saying he was approved. Jonathan went to the site, top page-1.attend events, select “DJ” from pull down, then found his name and select it to jump to his page. There were no stars, events, nor comments. He then decides to register as a DJ and Musician. He finds out that he can only advertise events if he takes the premium offer and so he decides to sign up for the month free trial. He is then able to customise his profile page and advertise his event and his music. A few days later, Jonathan did a gig that he advertised on miXXerS. He found that slightly more people than usual came to his gig. After the gig he checked his page to find some stars and comments. He now notices that he is starting build a larger fan base.

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Scenario 2: Miki-Asian college student/music lover

music

Background:

Miki is 23 years old Japanese international student studying in the University of Southampton, music major. Although she prefers dance/music/DJ activities it is not easy to find music event in the city, since she doesn’t have many friends here and she has some challenge in English. But she definitely needs to have some fun.

Story:

Miki has trouble finding music events she likes in Southampton. Since she is an international student new to this country and city, getting sub culture information is not easy for her. Then she started using miXXerS.

She went to the top page, click 7.Register(user), and registered herself as a member. In her profile photo, she felt it’s safe not to use her real photo, so she used an icon for now. After a day she got an email from miXXerS admin saying her registration was approved. Then she went to top page, 1. Attend event. She selected “Location”, then narrow down her choice by selecting “South East”, “Hampshire”, and “Southampton” to check if there are some events in the city. There is an event which she liked, so she asked her friend to go there. Her friend agreed, so she clicked “ticket” button to buy two tickets and was taken to the ticket site being used by the event producer. They also decide they want to take the opportunity to meet new people in Southampton and click to find other people who are looking for people to attend the event with. She and her friend check the profile of one user who would like to go to the event but not alone and arrange to meet with her. She attended to the event with her friend and meets the new person who they both like. They all love the party and decide to write review! Miki went to miXXerS top page, 1. Attend event, then reached the DJ who had a gig on her event. She added 5 stars to his page, recommended him and wrote a comment.