Beginning new development…

I’m about to start developing a new feature for our BooYippee members, and it’s something that we’ve been planning for quite a while and haven’t gotten around to doing. Particularly pleasing to our Artists and Photographers will be the news that shortly you will be able to upload images to BooYippee. I know this has taken a veritable age to come about, but you know how it is… things crop up, like nastly little bugs that need squashing.

Talking about bug squashing, that’s pretty much what I’ve been up to. That and trying to promote the site, something which I have no past experience doing (any help appreciated).

The plan

So, uploading images. The plan is to make it as simple as possible for users to upload and manage images. The thing is, I could get a bit more complex and allow the creation of albums etc, but I think I’m going to save that for the future. Initially you will be allowed to upload Gif and Jpeg images. The original size will be retained, and there will be a maximum file size of about 3mb. That should be enough shouldn’t it?

Once the image has been uploaded it will be available on the site along with all of the other uploads; users will be able to interact with it in exactly the same way… etc.

That’s the plan anyway.

As usual, any ideas, suggestions etc. just drop me a line.

Thanks for reading,

Mart.

Join the audience!

I’ve had to make a few alterations to the site recently, including sorting out the account types once and for all!

To explain; we’ve always wanted BooYippee to be for people who appreciate talent as well as those people who have a talent, in other words we wanted it to accomodate people like me. Talentless.

The sign-up procedure has now been altered quite considerably, and as a result is much more straightforward now. New members are now asked to specify which account type they would like, which can be one of the following:

1. The Audience
2. Promoter
3. Talented

The Audience

Members with this account type will not be permitted to upload content to the main site, but they can make use of all the other features that BooYippee provides including building up a network of friends to share favourites with and subscribing to our talented members to keep up to date with their contributions.

Although members of the Audience are not permitted to upload to the main site, we will soon be adding a feature that will facilitate ‘private’ uploads.

Promoter

We know that there are many people out there that don’t necessarily have a talent, but they know how to find out and are itching to share it with everyone. Members with an account type of ‘Promoter’ have the ability to upload to the main site, however it is (or will) be made clear that it’s someone else in the video or audio.

This is a great account type to use if you are involved with a talent group (such as a club) and you want to promote your acts. More on this in the future, but we know you wanted it, so here it is. Promoters are required to have permission to upload someone elses talent.

Talent

Last but by no means least, the ‘talent’ account. Upon sign up talented new members can specify the area of their expertise, and for those of you who are multi-talented, fear not! There is a place in the profile screen where you can specify other talents that you have. This account has no restrictions, however it is quite important that our talented members upload only their own talent.

Coming Soon……..

In the very near future we will be including the ability to upload member page content. Such uploads will not appear in search results, but will appear on your member page which is perfect if you want to upload a profile video for your visitors to see. This facility will be available to all members regardless of their account type.

That’s about it for now, there are loads of exciting changes coming in the next few months, including the talent lounge. Thanks for reading….

Mart.

Announcing the new BooYippee!

The new BooYippee is officially open!

After many months of hard work we can finally say that the new BooYippee is open. Browser testing was completed yesterday, and whilst it’s difficult getting the site to look the same on all browsers, we’re happy that we’ve covered the main browser market. Further testing on other browsers will continue, but in the meantime don’t hesitate to contact me with any browser specific problems that you come across and I’ll get right on it!

What we need now, is as many people rating and commenting on our members’ uploads. Invite your buddies, tell your friends, and help us make BooYippee the place for talent.

Don’t forget that in the near future we will begin work on the Talent Lounge which will be an area of the site where you will be able to see the cream of the crop. You can become a member of the talent lounge by invitation only, and we will be inviting members based on other members recommendations so now is a good time to flesh out your profile and get uploading! Being a member of the talent lounge will mean more exposure and more features.

A word about rating

When you rate on the site, please take into account the member’s experience level and rate fairly. Don’t forget to ‘Boo’ the really awful uploads and ‘Yippee’ the really good ones. You can do this by clicking the appropriate speech bubbles on the play page.

Feedback

If you have any feedback regarding the BooYippee website, we’d love to hear from you. Any suggestions, feedback, or questions… just get in touch.

And lastly, thanks!

Just a word of thanks to all the people who have given us feedback, and especially to all of our members who have taken the time to contribute their talent to the site. We want BooYippee to be the place to go to find just genuine talent, and you’re helping us realise that, so once again, a big thanks to you all.

Thanks for reading,

Martin Jackson
BooYippee

Browser testing

Hi,

I’m right in the middle of updating the site so that it works in Internet Explorer 6, and I’m re-testing on IE7 and Firefox. It’s actually more time-consuming than I’d hoped, but it’s going pretty well.

On my right hand side I have a checklist with all of the pages, and I’m gradually making a dent in it. However, at this particular juncture I’ve decided to have a coffee and a couple of hob nobs and I thought I’d take the opportunity to write this post.

If anyone finds any issues in IE6 let me know.

The plan is to get all of this browser testing out of the way and then send the email out announcing the new changes. We’ve had some really positive feedback about it all already.

I’m out of hob nobs now, so it’s back to the site….

More soon.

Site Update

I’ve been busy testing and tweaking over the last couple of weeks, and thankfully everything has gone really well. No major hiccups and I’ve managed to keep what hair I have!

Just thought that I should mention that the site is best viewed in Firefox 2 and Internet Explorer 7. However, one of things on my to-do list is to make sure the site is compatible with other browsers. Before I get onto that though I have a couple of nagging things that I’d like to get live, such as pagination on the What’s new screen and also the ability to invite multiple people to the site. At the moment you can only invite one person by email at a time but I’d like to make that more user-friendly, and eventually allow members to import a contacts list from their email client.

More soon….

Mart.

Social Bookmarking

You can now share content that you find on BooYippee easily by using social bookmarking sites. If you use any sites that we don’t currently support, please let us know.

• pijoo.com
• stumbleupon.com
• furl.com
• reddit.com
• digg.com
• delicious.com
• faves.com
• facebook.com

If you have accounts with any of the above sites, you can use the links on the BooYippee site to share content with your friends. You can do this by using the ‘share with…’ option on the play page, and also on any members page.

Mart.

BooYippee Site Update

We have recently released into beta the new version of the BooYippee website. Some of the site improvements we have made are as follows:

• New site design
• Better search pages
• Easier to find members on the site
• Better rating system
• More intuitive member page
• New media player

We have greatly improved the social-networking element of the website by including the following:

• More intuitive profile interface
• News feeds to keep up to date with what your buddies are up to
• Messaging functionality greatly improved
• Create and manage playlists of your favorite BooYippee uploads
• Send bulletins to your subscribers
• Include more detailed information about yourself
• Manage your uploads and comments more efficiently

The site is progressing well in Beta at the moment, but if you have any feedback, questions, suggestions….. anything at all, let us know.