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Project Planetwicked

In this report I have tried to cover as much as i possibly can, in the limited time I have, about Planetwicked, its vision, work to be done, and what has already been done.

Basically I believe this site has great scope to be successful because not only its layout is very good, but it provides an array of features, which not only give useful services to the users but are also exciting to use. My main vision with this is to, first
Try and get as many people from UK to sign up as possible in the initial stages, and due to my good links here I believe that should be pretty much possible, once it has a good number of members from UK, then basically there is scope for many sources of revenue, the first and major source of revenue would of course be the advertising, as the website is quite big and there are features like message box and message boards, there is enormous space for different kinds of advertising, in the initial stages the we might be using pay per click programs such as adsense, and later when we have a large number of members we would hope to get some paid advertising revenues.

As I mentioned earlier once we have a large number of members from the same country, there is unlimited scope of the number of businesses which can be done through this website. Some of these would include selling merchandise, such as university stuff or football gear which people here love to buy. There are many more sources I have though of, which are out of the scope of this report.

Site Status So Far

The development of this website started back in June, and was going through pretty smoothly, I was lucky to find a great programmer and a very talented web designer; they finished about 80% of the website which can still be accessed at www.planetwicked.com/user . The layout and design of the site is fabulous and even the programming is very good indeed, and I couldn’t have expected anything better. But then due to some problems within the firm which was doing my wesiteb, they were not able to deliver. In fact they were supposed to do the work in 1 month and it’s already been 6 months, and its still about 20% left. So that’s the main reason why I am looking for another firm to take over and finish the remaining work. This is a sort of website which would require regular updating, and I plan to add many new features from time to time, therefore I am looking for a firm with which I Can work on a long term basis, as I would be giving in lots of new work at regular intervals. As it’s a big portal with lots of integrated features, good programming is the key to making it successful at the same time as it’s not a business website; therefore its look is the key to keeping people on it, and in fact inducing them to register. Therefore good programming and designing are extremely essential to make it a success.

Details about the website and leftover work:

Basically it’s a hangout site for the age group between 13 – 28, but as it provides some really good features such as the birthday reminder service, the articles section, even targeting other age groups shouldn’t be a problem, because at the end of the day we can sell merchandise for any kind of age groups, so in broader terms the target market is UK, although in the initial stages, we wont mind members from any country so that we can get the site busier, but most advertising efforts would be based in and around UK.

Here are the features we will have in the website to start off (although we will add new features at regular intervals). Each feature has been divided into two paragraphs, the first one with the details about the feature and the second one with what’s done and what’s left.

Note: users will get points for using each and every feature, details about the points system can be found later in this report.

Birthday Reminder Service: This is one of the main features of the website; basically it’s based and designed on the lines of www.birthdayalarm.com . How this works is, the user enters the date of birth of the person he wishes to remember the birthday of, and two days before that person’s birthday, an email is sent to the user reminding him of the birthday. This facility would basically help users remember the birthdays of their friends, relatives etc. In the future we also plan to start a greeting card service, through which users would be able to send greeting cards, through our website. We expect this feature to be the major traffic producing one, as it can give us traffic even without advertising. How? The user will be given various options on how to enter the birthday, one would be manually, second would be copying and pasting the text and emailing his friends and relatives, finally, he can just enter the email addresses, of the persons, and they will get the email. Once they get the email, they can come onto our website, and enter their birthday details, the details automatically get added to the users accounts, but this would also help the person know about the website, and the chances are he would like the service and may himself register.

Well this feature is totally ready design wise, and everything from entering the details about the user to sending emails to referring people is working, the only thing which is not working is the automatic notification email, i.e. the email which would be sent to the user reminding him of someone’s birthday (cron job related problem). If you refer the birthday alarm website, login, go to reminders page, click on set my birthday alarms, you will see an option which asks you to enter your msn id and password, and on entering it, you can access your msn contact list, as you can see on the website, this is one feature which I would like to add to my site.

Message Boards: This basically refers to the normal message boards you see around the net, instead of using a free script we have decided to make our custom made message boards, so that we can regularly, update and add new features.

As I mentioned it would be a custom made message board, so that we can have more flexibility and add and remove features from time to time, also because we would like to have more control, on the places where we can deliver ads. Most of the part of the message board has been done, although quite a few features are left, like adding sub categories through the admin forum, setting up advertising spaces, and making some basic changes through the admin panel. There is need for some work in finalising the look and feel of the message boards, so some designing work might be required here. The admin panel should also show statistics about the message boards such as the number of posts made per day, number of new topics started per day, etc. Many of the features of the message boards would be taken from phpBB, along with our own ideas. Finally, the users should be able to search for posts. Please also take care of flood control measures, for eg, the user has to wait at least 15 seconds before he can make another post, otherwise there are certain software’s, which can make thousands of posts together, to halt a website.

Hot or Not: This is another special feature we have on our website. Basically a user can just, upload his picture and other users rate that picture on a scale of 1 to 5. This feature can be seen on the top left side of the website.

This feature is over and ready.

Quiz: Every day there would be three new quiz questions on the website, relating to any field, and the questions would be updated daily, users will get 5 points for each correct answer, and they can only score once a day.

This feature is over and ready.

Articles Section:
This is a place where users can post articles about pre-defined categories. The admin will have the right to create or delete category topics. The users will get points depending on the quality of the articles. When a user posts an article, the article will go to the admin panel, the admin or the moderator will authorize the article, and depending on the quality give points to the article. We won’t allow direct posting so that abusive content can be scanned.

The main structure is ready, very basic changes might be required, such as option for adding sub categories through the admin panel. But can qualify as over and ready.


Refer-a-friend:
This is pretty much self- explanatory, the user will put email addresses of their friends to that they can refer them. They get 2 points for referring each friend, but if that friend comes and registers to the website, they get further 30 points. Therefore it will be important to track the person who registers, it can be done through email for eg. lets say I refer mastiboy@hotmail.com , and he registers with the same email id, then I will get 30 points for it.

This feature is over and ready.

Guestbook: This is self explanatory as well, people come in and sign in your guestbook, whenever someone signs your guestbook you get five points for it.

Actually there is an interesting situation with this feature, this feature was over and ready, but now on the site its showing an error, but that is a temporary error of course, because I used this feature, and it worked well. So it would qualify as over and ready as well.




Mr and Mrs. Wicked:

Based on the results of hot or not, every month we will select Mr. & Miss Wicked. There would be a minimum qualification, for eg. you should have at least got 50 votes, this requirement would increase as the number of members increases. The girl with the best avg. and minimum no. of required votes would be Miss. Wicked, Whereas The guy with the same qualification would be Mr. Wicked.

The hot or not feature is ready, this will just be a page, which would show the monthly winner on the results of the votes people get in hot or not, so basically you just have to take the data from hot or not, to pick up a mr. and miss wicked. So its an extremely simple task.

Message Box: The message box would enable members to communicate with each other effectively, each member would be able to send messages to others through his message box, or through the user’s profile, which also has a “ Send a message” link.

Message box is over and ready, although some minor changes might be required, for eg, we will need to put a limit on the max. number of messages a user can have in his inbox, for eg. 50 messages per user.

Claim 5 Points Free: Clicking on this link would give each and every user 5 points for free everyday. The user can click this link only once a day.
This feature is over and ready.

Find a member: This refers to our member databse search engine, which would again be based pretty much on the lines www.funky.co.uk . Users can search for people from their own city, country, etc. Other options would include searching by Gender etc.

If you click on this link you will see that, there is a search box to find a member, but it’s a keyword search, we just have to make a slight change in this, instead of it being a keyword search, we have to give different search criteria, such as gender, city state, etc, it would be exactly like the browse members link on the funky site, so it is half ready.

Monthly Top Scorers: This section would basically show the people who are leading the points list every month. This would automatically get updated as and when the users score points.

This would also be a single page, which would just take the data from the points table, and display the top 10 point scorers. This won’t be done at the end of the month, this would be real time, for e.g. as and when the positions change and points change, it would update itself.

Contests: This section would feature all the contests we would be organising from time to time.

Well I haven’t thought how I will operate this section yet. But basically I guess we will need to develop a system through the admin to set up contests.

Poll: This section would feature our poll. As and when the user votes he would be able to see the results of the poll. There would also be a box for polling on the right bar on most pages.

This feature is over and ready.

Suggest & Earn:

This is a sort of feedback mechanism, but we have actually decided to reward our users for providing their feedback. This will work just like the articles section in a sense that the user would see a form, through which he can enter suggestions and give ideas to make this site even better, and then the admin would award the user with points if his idea is good. Points would be given depending on how good or bad the idea is, and an email would be sent to the user, notifying him of the number of points he gained from the idea.

This feature would require a simple form, which can exactly be just copied from the post articles page (form would just look like the post articles form). Even the procedure is same, the suggestion is posted, goes to the admin panel, is authorised by the admin, and points are given to the user, an email is sent to the user, that so and so number of points have been awarded to him. So here we can just use the same code as the one in the articles section, so it won’t require much work.

Buddy List:

This is basically a friends list feature, through which users can add certain people as their friends, they can add anyone through their profile, as under each user’s profile an “Add as friend” button can be seen. The user can access his friends list by clicking on this link, and this would enable him to send his friends messages, he would also have the option to delete anyone from his friends list at any time.

This feature is over and ready.

Update Profile:

Profile page basically refers to the page which would contain information about the user, such as his name, messenger details, interest’s hobbies etc. This information can be updated anytime by the user, using the update profile page.

This feature is over and ready.

But certain parts of this feature would be put into a new section you will need to make called “My Wicked Admin”, for e.g. at the moment there is an option in this section “Notify me of new messages via email”, this option will be transferred to the my admin section, some other features will also be have to put into the my admin section, such as the personal signature of user, which would go under all the posts he make, or all the messages he sends.

View Own Profile: Clicking on this link would allow the user to view his own profile.

This feature is over and ready.

Prizes: This page would list the prizes that the top point scorers would get every month.

I should be able to add the prizes, some details about the prize and the picture of the prize through the admin. Panel.

News: This page would contain all the latest news about the website. There would also be a news ticker on the homepage, which would flash all the headlines, clicking on a headline would take the user to the main news page.

This feature is over and ready.

Hall Of Fame: This section would basically be divided into two. The all time point scorers hall of fame, and monthly winners hall of fame. The first one would include the list of the top ten players with the highest overall points (term defined in the points section) and the second one would include the list of winners in the previous months.

Once again, in this case, data has to be picked up and that would help to display these results.

The Points System:

On our web site users would get points for doing different things, you must have read about how many points users get for each feature, in the above section, but here is brief summary again:

1 point/post in message boards.
2 points for recommending a friend...further 30 points if that friend registers.
5 points - if someone signs your guestbook.
15 points max - quiz system. ( 3q's * 5)
Discretionary Points (admin will decide how much to give) - for writing articles.
20 points - for having a picture on your profile ( should be approved by us ).
5 points daily - just for being online.
Discretionary Points (admin will decide how much to give) for every suggestion approved

The point system for certain features has been setup, and for some others it is yet to be done, as you could find out from surfing around the website, and reading the above content. There has to be a control in the admin panel, to take care of the points system, through which I can give additional points to any user at any time.

Please take note that two types of points will be saved everywhere, monthly points, and the users overall points. Overall points refer to the total points the user has scored since he joined the website. Now if you go to the users profile on the website, you will see two types of points, overall and monthly, on the website at various places you will notice that, the users points are shown next to his name, these are his overall points and will always keep adding up depending on the users activities, but the monthly points will become zero at the end of each month. So please take special care of this fact when designing the points system. Please also make any necessary points system control that might be required in the admin.


Ad management system:

There are certain ad paces available on the website, and many more have to be made still, advertisements will be a major source of revenue and so this is the most important feature here. I want a very solid ad management system, which will show all details of how to manage all the ads, how many clicks there have been on each ad, automatic ad rotation, I will suggest you to use “PHP adsnew” it’s a open source ad management system and its extremely new, if you search for this online and go to their website, you will get a user manual with all the details of how to set it up and operate it. This feature is yet to be done. I want as many advertising spaces as possible, for example when a user sends a message to another user, through the message box, under each message there would be an advertisement. There would also be ads in the message box.

Other Smaller leftover features:

Bugger list:
This feature would allow the users to block certain users from sending them messages, so if a user receives a message from a user, and find it annoying, he can add that user to his bugger list.

Online offline status:
Every members status should be shown next to his id, as in if the users online, a green signal would show and if offline a red one, please see funky to see how it works.

FAQ Page:
This refers to frequently asked questions, in the admin there should be a place from where faq questions and their answers can be added, as soon as they are added they should become visible on the user section. I should also have the choice of sorting them into different categories, for e.g. questions relating to birthday alarm would go under birthday alarm category.

Ban User:
I should be able to ban certain users from the website, on the basis of their username, ip address, email, etc. I should also be able to un-ban them if wanted. I should also be able to ban certain usernames such as admin, administrator, manager, etc..to be taken as usernames.


Moderators:

I should have the right to make moderators, for the forums and the articles section, and even for other sections of possible, so that once the site is up and running I can share my workload. For e.g. I should be able to give certain powers to certain users, such as they can authorize articles and give points, but that’s all they can do as moderators, they cant access any other features, in the same way I can make forum moderators, who can delete posts and stuff, but cant touch other admin features. This can be done by making a user rights section in the admin. For eg, there can be small boxes with the tick options next to them, options can be, “allow acces to article admin”, allow access to forum admin”, even under forum admin, the moderator shouldn’t be able to make categories, but only delete posts, and do some other basic stuff. Hope you get the basic idea.


Admin Features:

Here are some basic features which have to be incorporated into the admin panel.
 The admin panel should show basic data like.
• Avg. number of new users registering per day.
• Number of new users registered on that particular day, in a particular month, etc.
• Total no. of users.
 The ability to back up all the data, like the articles, forum messages, etc.
 It should allow me to communicate with people, for e.g., I can email all the members through one email box…I just have to enter the email text, and it goes to everyone. I should also be able to sort all the members, for eg. I may want to email only people from Birmingham.
 Text Management: when everything is finally ready, from the admin panel, I should be able to change and update the text of all the static pages, such as the birthday alarm main page, home page, contact us page, so that I don’t have to email you for small little changes. There should also be a page, from where I can manage the text of all the mails being sent, such as the mails sent at the time when a new user registers, a new message received mail, etc. These pages should also enable me to add ads on them, as in the email ones. For e.g. I plan to put advertisements under the emails that would be sent to users.

Notes

 Basic design changes would be needed from time to time, such as changing headings, change of text or pictures etc.
 In quite a lot of features, where I have mentioned over and ready, some basic designing changes might be required, because although the features are ready, some designing would help improve their look.
 In features where I have mentioned over and ready, some basic changes might be required, in case something wrong comes to mind, but the changes would be very minor.
 The are certain features which fall under the “over and ready” category, but don’t yet have the points system implemented in them, so there may be requirement to implement the points system in them.
 General paging will have to be done at the end in certain features like articles and forums, this means, how many articles should be displayed per page, or how many forum messages should be displayed per page.



Other Notes

 While developing the site, please use techniques which would help save as much space as possible, as due to large number of people, and specially if the site becomes a success the space may run out very quickly, and even bandwidth can be a problem.


Please refer to the following web sites thoroughly to understand the project even better:

www.funky.co.uk
www.birthdayalarm.co.uk
www.planetwicked.com/user

Budget: i usually outsource my work to India, or other smaller budget countries..so please see my budget stands at around $400 to $500...you can contact me Via MSN or email at monga_ashish@hotmail.com