Several months back, Vinfotech was awarded this exciting new social network design project with a twist. The twist as it turned out was that Fipeo is a ‘video’ based social network. Thrilling for us as our RIA team had been waiting for an opportunity to work on something like this. Read our earlier story about this startup.

www.fipeo.com lets you find people with a purpose, like looking up members for learning a new language, finding people in a place they are moving to, connecting with other hobbyist, experts, etc., by recording a video message on Fipeo.com and sending it to them. Connections are then formed and the members get to know each other using the video based messaging tools built into the website.

We would like to highlight some key learnings of our team during the design and development of this video social network

Our learnings that standout

Designing and developing Fipeo was a very rewarding experience for the .NET and RIA teams at Vinfotech. Here are some highlights of the video social network that we are very proud of presenting to the world:

TAGS

• Add Tags: Implemented auto-suggest with number of uses and allowed user added tags in profile creation
• Manage Tags: Drag and drop tags

VIDEOS AND VIDEO CHAT

• Video Chat: Flex based video chat powered by .Net programming

• Videos: Recording and sending video messages, recording video profiles along with reviewing video and selecting a thumbnail, introduction videos for connecting members and creating badge videos

• Badge Video: Developed embed code for (resizable) badge videos that can used to embed the video on other websites

Flex Video Nitty-gritties

• Implemented Echo and Noise Cancellation, Mic and Camera detection and maintained video quality while applying size compression. Also applied the superb feature of Mirroring while recording the videos

• Customized Flash player settings with helpful visual tips. Coded in options for selecting from multiple audio and video devices if available on a computer

Design highlight

• The design of how a little box with answer and deny buttons appears on the called connection's screen when someone makes a video call along with the ringing sound – a sweet touch.

SEARCH

• Multiple Tag Search: An innovative approach to searching for members by applying multiple tag filters

• Location Search: Location search, which shows only those city names where members have logged-in from

• Location Filters: Search for members based on different radius parameters

• Paging: Paging and appearance of record on the search page to maintain the records as per the appearance on the related page number.
• The multiple tag search has the tags over lapping each other. After a certain number of tag filters have been added, the rest show up in a little gray box – these are editable.
• The location search is also designed very beautifully and is intuitive to use

USER STATUS

• Online? Maintain the online/offline status of logged in user.

• User Location: Track and update members' locations based on where they have logged-in from.

OTHERS

• A To Do list that prompts users to try out the features on the website

• A Progress Bar that shows the member's profile completeness

• An interesting approach to Search Analytics for search results

• Facebook being as popular it is, we have implemented the option for users to sign-up and log into Fipeo using their Facebook accounts. They can also invite their Facebook friends to Fipeo

• Notifications: Members are notified of new FaceMessages, missed Face2Face requests etc. It was very challenging and very smartly done in the short time frame

• Development of modules in very short span of time, done flawlessly since the team had a very clear understanding of the requirement and how to program it to get the required results.

• Despite frequent changes in requirements, the team developed the modules as per the client requirement in proper time frame.

• Superb decision making for regular module and new/change in requirements and building up logical cases for the project so that minimum errors and efforts had to be applied during the quality assurance/ testing phases.

• Excellent team effort, support and coordination made the project progress smoothly.

Needless to say, the team at Vinfotech thoroughly enjoyed the making of Fipeo. We have delightful news that Fipeo has received funding. Kudos Thomas, Jeffery and Fipeo's Devevelopment Team at Vinfotech! Read the success story of Fipeo.

A personal message from Vinfotech to startups: if you believe in your idea, the world will listen to you and we are always here to assist you develop your idea into a successful reality. Share your ideas with us and watch them turn into a reality.