Notes

Social Networking WEB DEVELOPMENT for Travellers - AN INCIDENT Study
A software development company developed a social media website in travel domain for its customer. The client was a group of first generation entrepreneurs. These were travel enthusiasts who shared a common vision to provide technology enabled services to tourists and travelers. They wanted to build a niche social networking website in travel domain and capitalize on Internet based advertising.

This project proposed to empower millions of French speaking travellers to collaborate and communicate on travel related issues by way of a single website which has been missing from the landscape. The project required certain out from the box features important for travellers besides standard social networking web design.

Your client said "the site should narrate traveler's stories and help them make informed decisions. It is not about searching rooms"
The program company and the Client decided to develop the website using open source technology on Web 2 2.0. After detailed discussions, it had been decided to develop this social networking website on LAMP platform (Linux, Apache, MySql and PHP) platform on MVC architecture. AJAX, XML and Jquerry were used in certain functionalities to help make the web site fast. The decision of open source technologies for development of social networking website reduced the budget as it eliminated the necessity to buy any software licence.

Development Methodology

The technology team prepared a detail feature list predicated on clients business objectives. This was analysed and changed into software specification. The SRS document was made and revised to create it as objective as possible before kick start of project.

Software company's team continually communicated with the client to go over the developed features and gave demonstration of the working software. The team also was also proactive to the changes requested by the client during development. This collaborative approach for social media website development in India allowed a rapid development and shorter time to market.

The website provided a platform that facilitates "viral" proliferation of information passed along from user to user. The features were developed keeping in mind the simplicity, trends and specific need of the travelers. A number of the features in the website are:

1. Traveller profile
2. Travelogue
3. Share, tag Photos and Videos
4. Share Tips and Tricks
5. Review Travel Destinations
6. read more & Rate Hotels, Tour operators, Shops, Restaurants,
7. Destination/travel based Groups and Communities
8. Integration with Google Maps
9. Recommendation on "To accomplish" and "To See" at a particular destination.
10. Tagging & Tag cloud

The website helped to create a travel community through collaboration among travelers. It provided them with easy to use helpful tools for connecting to one another and share their stories and media. Since this is a distinct segment space, company could generate revenue leveraging on the rapidly growing traffic.

Monica Rai works with ESS. Eastern Software Systems (ESS) is a leading software services and products company having a presence in a lot more than 25 countries. ESS is CMM Level 5 company and ISO 9001:2008 certified. At ESS we've the experience, the expertise and the resources to respond to the unique challenges and opportunities that are associated with providing top quality IT solutions in the extremely competitive business environment of today.

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Read More: https://myclc.clcillinois.edu/web/jeff_test/ttttttutoring/-/message_boards/message/49191377