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A note to self: Lessons from the WWW App

Peter Zhang — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 08:24:52 +0000

A week ago, I created an web app designed to aid ICS students in choosing their WWW trips where their friends are going. Like the app I created a while ago with courses, this idea came up from the millions of “where are you guys going?” wall posts on Facebook – why not just create a central hub for people to see where people are (or in some cases, aren’t) going?

Development took a little bit over a full day and made me sleep at 5am – something that I would have definitely not done normally. Could have took much less time had I not played with the various Facebook APIs, jQuery effects and aesthetic elements, but you know, it was worth it. I mean, in the end I took this mini project as an experiment in itself, testing what works and what doesn’t, and improve on the later products.

And here is my report.

Stats

Launched on Sunday, 23rd January morning. Last activity on 25th. (Yes, it only survived for 2 days) 101 Users, 155 “clicks” or choices made.

You know, I was actually quite impressed myself. Although I expected more, but this was definitely enough to make myself proud.

What worked.

The emphasis on “Socialization”

Nowadays apps are all about your FRIENDS and no long about YOU. What other people are doing are becoming much more important. A huge part of the App was designed with that in mind.

The “picture wall” (suggested by Teddy) was one of such thing. Not only was it (surprisingly) extremely pretty, but also helpful. Not a lot of people realized it, but users may click on someone’s profile picture and it will show his/her selected trips. Had this feature not been implemented, I think the App would have lost a lot of interest form its users.

Facebook is DA BOSS.

Speaking of socializing… Facebook has shown superiority to almost every other product on the Internet. Heck, it even (almost) replaced email! Apps that go against it, like Wave, can’t even stand a chance even under Google. And therefore, there is absolutely no way not to tie this app to the trend.

Everybody had an Facebook account – I did not need to worry about not providing true identity, nor do I need to take care of security, cookies, sessions, blah blah blah. All I needed was one line of code checking if the user is logged in or not, that’s it. Saved me database spaces at the very least, not to mention time to debug security holes to authentication and what not.

And because everyone had a Facebook account, activity on this App can be easily by other people, thus helping the app spread faster. In theory, when people see that other people are making their WWW trips choices on this App, they’d be like “Oh hmm.” and click on the link. (I didn’t set up a referrer check to see how many clicks actually came from Facebook published stories, but I’d imagine there is at least 30%)

Ajax

Who wants to load a whole page just to see a tiny description box of a trip? No one. And that’s why I spent so much time on ajax-fying the site. There is only one page in the whole app, and every little thing is only updated when it had to. No extra bandwidth, no extra lag time, no extra nothing.

Name me one person that didn’t like the dynamic loading of contents and the stunning (come on, admit it ) effects on the page, I dare you.

What didn’t work

IE Compatibility

GARH! This was THE flaw of the app (or maybe the school). Because IE is the only browser installed on school computers, there were no way for students or teachers to check it out in school. By the time they got home, they probably have forgotten about it as well.

I tried figuring out but I couldn’t due to the lack of developer tools on IE. Okay fine, I was being a little bit lazy, but. I think we can all blame IE.

Timing / Marketing

It was all wrong. I should have started this way earlier, and not just 3 days before the decision deadline. Well, I didn’t know how I could have sped it up considering I only found out about WWW choices that day.

One thing I also could have done was inform the WWW Committee about it to have them include this in daily newsletters. But again, it had IE compatibility issues…

The Design

Nope. I didn’t like it. My original design intentions were to keep it simple, but now it looks (way) too messy with so much blue. Could have also tried some more icons, I guess.

Conclusion / What’s coming up

A course selection app! Something that I have been planning since last year, but never gotten around to it. It will definitely go the direction of “socializing” just like this app, but given much more time to prep and advertise so to bring its full potential.

What did YOU like and dislike about the app?

The concept of the ICS Tribal App

Peter Zhang — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:56:49 +0000

I’ve realized the ICS Tribes App looks much more confusing than it is. I thought writing something about it explaining fully how the whole system is would be nice, so here it is

When I designed the app, I spent a lot of time thinking about how I can make use of the already-awesome Facebook systems. That way, I don’t have to spend a lot of time on programming a nice interface myself, nor do I have to worry about the right security stuff – Facebook can take care them for me!

Showcase with Pages

After thinking a while, here’s what I decided: Facebook Pages! Each Tribe has its own Facebook Page, and that is where the tribes”showcase” their class. Through them, tribes can easily upload pictures and tell everybody about it through the fans system. Pages are where tribes basically showcase their work, and most likely where all the tribal points will be coming from (posting good pics, reflective stories, etc.)

While that is solved, another issue popped up: I need to somehow connect the pages together. And this is where the Page Tabs come in. With the “ICS” Tabs on each page, you can access the information about a tribe quickly, such as points and members, as well as links to other tribes too.

“Internal Communication” via App

In addition, there is also a separate part from the pages system, and it is the app itself. If you launch the app from Facebook menus, you’ll be able to see something like an announcement system. Although the whole system is still in progress, the part with advisory announcements is done. Advisories and Mr. Chan can easily setup advisory meeting times. And yes, that means no more posting “any advisory tomorrow” messages on Facebook. =)

Always Looking for Suggestions

So now, please do me a favor and start using the Facebook App! We’ll be running a few contests soon, but it’s never too late to start. =D

I’m always looking for suggestions. If you have ideas (be reasonable, please) that you think can help the ICS App Experience, please do tell me! Either by Facebook wall post, or commenting on this post.

Two Facebook Ideas I’m Planning to Work on…

Peter Zhang — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 16:15:46 +0000

After developing ICS Tribes, I find that it’s actually quite fun to make a Facebook App and share it with friends. It spread so fast it’s not even funny, which makes me wonder again at the awesomeness of Web 2.0 and Social Networks. I started thinking, how can I take advantage with it? I mean, from the way I vision it, there are a huge user base for Facebook already, and all I need is some really slight advertising, and the app will automatically grow rocket high.

But there is a problem as well. With that many apps already made on Facebook, I have to make mine really stand out and make the users really like it and find it useful. But how exactly do I do that?

Social Vocab

Let’s see… apparently people like apps to interact with their friends and stuff (look at Social Interview)… but I want to make something more than Social Interview; being a copy cat never works. I was studying Vocab for my SAT when I thought of that, and an idea immediately popped out – Social Vocab!

It’s still a very rough idea, but I think it definitely has potential. Basically, this app will allow the user to go through the friendlist and assign SAT vocabs on them. Let’s say, the app will pick a random person from the friend list, let’s say, Peter Zhang, and the user replies that Peter Zhang is scintillating (out of 5 vocabs optoins). During the process of assigning vocab, the user actually unnoticeably learned the word by associating the word with the object. Now, because of that, supposedly the user will think of Peter Zhang when they see the word “scintillating”, and remember its meaning as being “brilliant”.

Of course, there will be other tools to help the user memorize as well, such as flash cards, quizzes and maybe games; but the main point of the app really is about the paragraph above. The reason I think it will be successful is because, this app can easily spread by posting on other people’s walls (“You’ve been described as ‘scintillating!’”); more users will join, and eventually, I’ll be rich.

That’s So True!

Quite opposite to the idea above, this idea came from being annoyed by “Person A joined This Group and 7 million other groups” messages. I really hate it when people join these groups just because they think the name is true. By having a large group, group creators can now earn from putting ads in their group, and I simply think that’s not fair. Plus, you’re most likely going to be spammed for joining groups. Groups were not made to be used this way!

Therefore, in an attempt to bring back the clean Facebook without the joining group messages (yes, I do know I can filter it out), I came up with the idea for “That’s So True!” App. Basically, in this app, the user can find phrases where they think it’s true, and join it. That way, people can discover the trends of what people think safely. No spams; no duplicates; no unfair advantages for anybody else. Also, people are going to find the “truth” so much easier, too.

What do you think?

I don’t really have time to develop these ideas just yet, but I will. Someday. What do you think about these apps? Will you use it? Why or Why not?

Where’s the Peetah?

Peter Zhang — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 15:59:37 +0000

A very late Merry Christmas!

I didn’t JUST realize I haven’t updated this blog for a while, it’s just that, the lack of time keeps on preventing me from posting. Or should I just simply say, I suck at time management.

I just came back from my Shanghai trip and spent a week of Christmas break over there with friends. It was certainly nice seeing them, but now that I lived in Hong Kong for such a long time, I realize how boring Shanghai is. I was there for a week, but I could basically think of only two places to hang out at. And in those places, there were basically only one thing to do, besides shopping at really lame stores and eating, Karaoke. (Oh my voice…)

But it is true that I was very busy these days though. After the Finals and the school stuff, I immediately began working on my 8 website projects. Yes, 8. Let me count it for you:

Tribal Facebook App – my Dean asked me to write a Facebook App that would basically act as a online community for students – for them to post pics, comments, blog posts, etc.
ICS Buy – an eBay system thing that lets ICS students to trade materials and equipments
CubePoints – a WordPress plugin that lets users to earn points by commenting/posting
EEC - a website for my church
LO.SG – a domain shortener
AxieBlast - I need to find some way to revive my dead community. Hmph!
(Not confirmed) A Wedding site for a teacher
(Not confirmed) A site for an Environmental Club in SMIC

But that’s not it. Since my complete fail at SAT (with a pity 1890 – Reading 520, Writing 650, Math 720), my mom has been urging me to study SAT. I know I need to study, but I just never had the motivation. I get out my SAT book, put it on my desk, and just as I flip the book open, something on the computer would happen: either a new email comes in or somebody would start chatting with me. Sucks .

And besides working, so many good movies are out recently, too! Besides Avatar, there’s Alvin and Chipmunks 2, Sherlock Holmes, and heck, I didn’t even watch Christmas Carol yet!

BUSY BUSY BUSY.

But I’m not giving any of these up. Just wait. I am working on the 2nd day of my ThinkQuest journey, and I already have 2000 words. Heh, wish I can write that much for English class. I doubt anybody is going to read it, but still, I think such a nice experience deserves somebody to document it thoroughly. Just MAYBE, sometime somebody will notice it and asks me more about ThinkQuest… and I’ll be famous? *daydreaming*

[TQLive] Link to Photos

Peter Zhang — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 07:43:56 +0000

I just finished uploading pictures to three different sources just so that China users should be able to view them too! (DARN that Great FireWall of China!)

Preferred – Picasa Web Albums

http://picasaweb.google.com/peetahzee

Facebook Photos

Add me on Facebook if you haven’t already done so, and then simply find the photos under my name. (Search for “peetah” on Facebook and you should be able to find me then)