AlertThingy
Problem
Social networks can be great for individuals and for organisations. 150 million people have a Facebook account and many businesses are starting to see the benefits of the platform. The problem is that most social networks and services are only available to users when they have them visible in a web browser. You have no idea what your friends and colleagues are doing on Facebook unless you visit the website. Many people use more than one network and that means visiting numerous sites which can be time consuming.
Solution
We decided that a desktop application solves these problems by aggregating the activity feeds from different networks into a single window. When new information is available the user is notified by a small pop-up that appears in the bottom of the screen for a short time.
Historically building applications that work on multiple operating systems was complex and time consuming. In early 2008 Adobe produced AIR, a technology that allowed us to take the skills and processes that we use to build browser based applications and design/develop a desktop app that runs on Windows, MacOS and Linux.
Producing an application is only part of the solution, we needed to market and distribute that application. This was never an after thought but integral to the original planning phase. By using a new technology AIR and building on the latest social network we were able to generate significant PR. Having engineered the application to be expandable we were able to quickly add additional features that continued the press momentum driving 40,000 installs in the first 10 days. So successful was AlertThingy that in late 2008 we launched version 2.
Stats
Technologies used:
Adobe AIR
Adobe Flex
HTML
CSS
AJAX
Team Size:
Four
Time taken:
Version 1: one week
Version 2: ongoing
More:
See Jeremy discussing AlertThingy at Adobe OnAir event in London
Meet With Approval
Problem
Many of us at work or socially need to organise a gathering or event that involves numerous people. Outside of the shared calendar often found within companies it can be a problem finding a suitable date and time that is convenient for everyone. Contacting multiple people and attempting to find that common "window" can be extremely time-consuming for the organiser.
Solution
A web based application seemed to be the obvious way to solve this problem. Everyone has access to the internet and by providing organisers with the ability to create a meeting page, offer various date and time options and then have attendees emailed the page address the process is made much easier. Attendees can then simply select the dates and times on offer that they are available and the organiser can quickly see the optimum time.
Such a system needed to be fast and intuitive for both organisers and attendees. We wanted a technology that allowed us to develop a solution quickly but without sacrificing performance, scalability or security. We wanted to provide a great user experience through a clean interface with a splash of AJAX where it made the user's life easier. We also wanted to demonstrate that building great web applications does not need to be expensive or take a long time.
In late 2007 Microsoft released the latest version of their .NET Framework and development software Visual Studio 2008. Using .NET and the freely available Express version of Visual Studio we were able to develop our solution in less than 4 weeks at extremely low cost. By using the very latest technology "Meet with Approval" was case studied by Microsoft and that helped to drive 2,000 users and 500 events in the first two months.
Stats
Technologies used:
Microsoft .NET 3.5
Microsoft SQL Server 2008
Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX
Microsoft Virtual Earth
PayPal
Plaxo
HTML
CSS
Team Size:
Two
Time taken:
Four Weeks
More:
Read the Microsoft case study of "Meet with Approval"