Requirement

To develop a Facebook application to allow users to vote for their favourite bars initially in Greece and Russia.

Key functional elements included:

• Developing a Facebook application that integrated with Google maps to allow users to add a bar in their market
• Allowing users to upload photographs against a bar and vote for it to be the best bar in their market
• Developing the solution so that it would work in non-Roman fonts and could easily be localised for future market roll-outs

Technical Solution

The application was built in PHP, MS SQL 2005 (to replicate the client’s hosting environment) and JavaScript and Flash elements for the front end and with integration with Google Maps via its API.

The application was integrated with Facebook allow users to register via their profile and have all other data including voting stored in the application’s database.

Additional functionality included developing all application content to delivered via XML to make further market roll-outs quick to deploy.

Project Mechanics

The project ran for two months from initial planning to launch. Some key stages of the project included:

• Working in a semi-Agile project approach to meet the end client’s launch timetable for the first version of the application
• Developing the application architecture to allow it to function as a standalone application for individual markets but with a centralised administration backend accessible from the web.
• On-going application maintenance and support

Conclusion

Despite having a relatively short project timeline we were able to work in a collaborative fashion with the client defining functionality as the development progressed and still being able to deliver on time and within budget.

The application was extremely successful in its launch markets and the end client is now actively planning to roll it out to other global territories that they are present in.

Requirement

To develop a rich media viral microsite that would encourage registration and this data capture and also drive traffic to the end client’s websites.
Key functional elements included:

• An entirely Flash front end displaying user selected Flash video which was then sent to friends as the core content of the site
• A user registration and send to friend module to drive site traffic
• The option for users to upload images to create UGC for the site
• Detailed reporting on the traffic and registrations accessed via a custom admin module

Technical Solution

The site was developed using Flash as the front end integrated with a PHP and MySQL backend.
Data was passed between the Flash via XML generated on the fly.
The site was hosted on a cluster of four servers; 2 web and 2 DB replicating in real time with load balancing between them to ensure a resilient hosting platform.

Project Mechanics

The project ran for 6 weeks from initial planning to launch. Some key stages of the project included:

• Building Flash/PHP functionality to allow users to select from a pre-defined set of variables to assemble a series of video clips to be played back seemingly as a single video
• Developing a bespoke Flash video player to load multiple FLV’s concurrently to ensure the final video playback was seamless
• Integrating optional user picture file upload functionality with the ability for site administrators to select pictures from these to be displayed on the main site
• Creating a custom reporting module to allow site administrators to easily gauge site traffic and user registrations
• Implementing a fully redundant short term custom hosting solution based on the agency’s site traffic predictions

Conclusion

We have extensive experience in developing solutions that integrate rich media with databases and bespoke functionality in both .net and PHP.

For this project we were able to offer a turn-key solution of both the development and specialist hosting required for the projected user traffic.

Our deep understanding of how to deliver video into a dynamic environment combined with our experience in creating microsites ensured that we were able to deliver a site that did all that the agency and end client expected for their viral campaign.

Requirement

To develop a 200 plus page product site promoting the end client’s new international business product targeting the senior management of global companies as users.
Key functional elements included:

• Developing bespoke user administration modules and functionality to integrate with parts of the end client’s customer data
• Developing Flash/XML components to pick up XML driven data from multiple third party stock market indices and displaying the information as graphs on the site.
• Creating and populating 200 plus pages of content and assets without a CMS
• Building the site to have a JavaScript and non-JavaScript version and for the site to be AA accessible compliant

Technical Solution

The site was developed as a non-CMS editable HTML website with functionality being developed using PHP integrated with an Oracle database to create all the bespoke functionality required.
Additional elements were created by integrating JavaScript, Flash and XML with both the frontend and the underlying application and database.

Project Mechanics

The initial phase of the project ran for six months from initial planning to launch and involved working closely with both the agency and end client throughout the project. Some key stages of the project included:

• Working with end client’s IS team to understand their coding and security standards and to replicate their hosting environment as the site is hosted on the bank’s own servers
• Developing front end HTML to meet the agency’s rigorous design requirements and the end client’s need for a very high level of accessibility
• Creating Flash functionality drawing data from XML feeds and that worked when the feeds were down whilst meeting the end client’s security standards for writing data to servers
• Developing bespoke functionality using PHP and Oracle to manage user access to the site and to integrate with some of the end client’s existing systems

Conclusion

The project required that we and the agency worked very closely with the client particularly in order to meet the end client’s very specific coding and security standards.
Heavy preparation at the start of the project ensured that we were able to meet a quite aggressive launch deadline to coincide with the global offline launch of the service whilst satisfying the rigorous standards of the end client’s internal IS team.
The project was extremely well received by the end client, being cited as one of the best they had recently worked on and has moved to further phases which we continue to develop and support.