Social Networking Portal for High School and College Students with Online Games
Categories : All, Case Study, Education, Social Networks
Client Requirement
Social Networking Portal for High School and College Students with Online Games Aimed towards teenagers and youngsters the site is a massive social networking portal which acts as an online scrapbook for high school and college students all over.
The site emulates the look and feel of a college yearbook by providing youth-centric features such as friends’ lists, dating alerts like flirts & secret admirer lists as well as sections like locker room etc.
The site provides a thorough online community experience with extensive customization of profile,access to instant messenger & mail, managing favorites and ranking & blocking of members.
User participation is actively encouraged through different ranking systems, popularity contests,interesting polls and vote battles that users can host or participate in.
The site promotes users to stay active in the community by providing them with the ability to upload pictures, write blogs and create blurbs.
The site also offers search options and creation of groups, forums & events to encourage user participation.
Project Challenges
Team faced the following challenges:
- Developing a robust framework for the site which is capable of managing millions of users at the same time without slowing the site down.
- Synchronizing the integrated features like blogs, messenger and mail to function smoothly while being executed simultaneously.
- Enabling the site to operate at top speed even in peak traffic hours and maintaining good load balance.
- Ensuring easy navigation through the implementation of web usability principles in the website design.
- Developing and incorporating an extensive list of profile customization options,complex ranking systems and voting contests designed for enhancing users’ active participation.
- Ensuring safe and secure transfer of data.
Technologies Used
| Operating System & Server Management | Red Hat Linux OS,Multi-Server Architecture with Staging & Production Environment through Version Controlling releases , Server Optimization,Security & SSLImplementation, Scheduler for Back-ups,Alert Monitoring System Integration, Server Performance Tuning at regular intervals, Software Firewall Configuration & Maintenance |
| Development Tools & Environments | PHP5+, Rational Rose Enterprise Edition, AJAX, Java Script, HTML5 CSS3 etc. |
| Database | PostgreSQL Server, DB Clustering , DB Optimization, Master Slave Replication , Query Optimization, Scheduler for Backups |
Manpower
| Project Leader | 1 |
| Developers | 8 |
| Designers | 2 |
| Quality Assurance Testers | 2 |
Planning
With prior experience in developing full-fledged community portals BRAINVIRE followed a four-layered approach towards development starting with:
- The Database layer containing PostgreSQL Database,Tables, Stored Procedures and so
- The Data Access layer containing the libraries responsible for accessing data from the database.
- The Business Logic layer consisting of all the business logic procedures for modules like User Profiles, Forums and Blogs.
- The User Interface layer which forms the Graphical User Interface of the website.
Architecture
PHP and PostgreSQL formed the basis of development as the site was a social networking portal with extensive features and required the ‘Faster to Market’ transition of such concepts. User Profiles, Invitations, Forums, Blogs and other modules were developed in PHP such that they can be executed directly from the UI layer. These PHP files consisted of all the business logics used forrespective modules like Save (Add/Update), Delete,Get Single Object, Get Multiple Object forlisting and were designed to be capable of handling many more logics which were not related to the database.
The Data Access layer contained the libraries responsible for accessing data from the database and built a generic query for insert, update, delete and select depending on the business class. All the business layer components were coded to use this library for data accessing process from the database. Stored procedures were used only for complex retrieval of data from multiple tables and were entirely avoided with conditional syntax to ensure the smooth performance of the website.The UI layer was kept free of any business logic with images, applications and data being called from their respective servers. Sub-domains were used for the different areas of the website to guarantee scalability.
Development Highlights
As the portal was targeted towards the youth numerous areas of active interest for the teens were included. The site was made rich with daily contests, popularity battles and voting polls. Different ranking factors like stars and an amusing category of superlatives were incorporated to enhance the user participation. Various personalization options for the profile and the integration of numerous Flash tools allowed users to portray themselves accurately and creatively. Users could also create different lists for friends, bullies, flirts and secret admirers etc. A locker room section provided users with the functionality of storing items of interest.
The user status, user statistics and other user-related validations were faultlessly managed to provide instant access to arange of fun-filled features. Optimized queryfeatures offered greater freedom in narrowing down information through comprehensive search criteria. Stringent precautionary measures were taken to ensure maximum security with regards to SQL injections.Web usability guidelines were strictly followed during the development and the interface was made easily navigable through judicious use of AJAX, CSS and HTML controls. The site was developed and fully functional within a span of 8 months.