Recipe for Social Commerce

As a continuation to my previous post on Social Commerce, this one follows the implementation of a Social Commerce project I led as a technical director for almost 1.5 years. The project was for a very well known instrument manufacturer that set on a mission to create a very unique site offering engaging eLearning content, entertainment videos, Social Networking and eCommerce.

Site Features

With a laundry list of features, and a highly customized online eLearning system, we set out to deliver the following core site features/functions.

> User and group-level blogging and forums
> Live Chat sessions
> Streaming HD eLearning and entertainment video content (live and pre-recorded)
> Streaming audio content (live and pre-recorded)
> YouTube-like video sharing
> Flickr-like photo sharing
> News articles
> Wikipedia-like library of articles
> eCommerce Store
> End-to-end site search
> Single sign-on user accounts

Technology

To deliver the site, a combination of platforms and technical solutions were used.

> Community Server
- User for all social networking features and functionality
> AspDotNetStorefront
- Used for all eCommerce features and functionality
> Custom eLearning System
- This was built on a customized eLearning database, layered with rich .NET and Flash user controls (e.g. video players, chat with instructor, note taking etc.)
> Custom Flash Video Player
- These were used throughout the site to stream video content at multiple angles, resolutions and chapters/sections
> LHTTPD
- Used to allow for “scrubbing” across a video at any position and start the stream at that position without having to wait for all of it to buffer.
> FFMPEG
- Used to convert multi-format video content to Flash format when users and content producers uploaded their video and audio files.
> Representational State Transfer (REST) Web Services
- The core API that wrapped Community Server and AspDotNetStorefront API was built on REST for improved response times, scalability, compatibility.
> CuteChat for Community Server
- Used to deliver the live chat sessions

Solutions Customization and Integration – Part III

It has been a while since I posted an update on this project… So here it goes.

Since my last post, the project I am working on has evolved to a 3-piece solution tying in AspDotNetStorefront ML 7.0, Community Server 2007 SP1 and a fully custom e-Learning solution built on Flash and .NET controls.

Due to the complexity and unique features on this project, the architecture and design grew to be very specific and custom – beyond the normal skinning of the out-of-box products and turning features on/off. The final architecture came down to an intermediate Data Application Layer (DAL) and Business Logic (BL) layer that encapsulates and partly overrides the methods/classes provided by Community Server and AspDotNetStorefront. The thinking behind this implementation is to retain the core functionality of both systems, allowing us to implement software upgrades easily and support the application maintenance and enhancement lifecycle. The e-Learning system, being that it’s designed from scratch, will expose a custom BL and DAL.

Interfacing with Community Server’s and AspDotNetStorefront’s API allows us to work outside the framework of classes/methods provided by both products, as well as build our own custom layer of methods/classes to define and produce entities that consume/provide data apparent to the application as designed. The presentation layer, will be modeled around the common ASP.NET practices of .aspx files, custom controls and a selection of controls from ComponenetArt’s WebUI product.

The single sign-on architecture has changed slightly since my last post. The approach taken now, for the sake of simplicity and ease of management, is to have Community Server act as the central point for account management/creation using ASP.NET’s membership provider, and have back-end processes that replicate billing/transactional data to AspDotNetStorefront. This allows us to collect all the data we need about a user in a User entity from the Community Server and AspDotNetStorefront databases.

The project is currently undergoing the initial stages of development, with a target date for launch of mid-2008. Stay tuned for more updates…

Solutions Customization and Integration – Part I

When faced with a Web project, one always wonders: Someone must have done that before, right?

Almost always the answer is a resounding “Yes!”, and that puts you on the path towards purchasing, customizing and launching the solution to meet the project’s requirements.

Recently, I took on a project involving a “mash-up” of a Social Networking, eLearning and eCommerce site. How do you even start on a project like that? What are the implications and costs? These are only a few of the questions that come to mind with a project of this size.

Aligning Requirements with Solutions

After extensive online research, and referencing past experiences with projects of a similar nature, I finalized the foundation of the site down to 3 products: AspDotNetStorefront ML (eCommerce), Community Server 2007 (Social Networking) and Adobe Connect Professional (eLearning).

The biggest task is to start aligning the client’s expectations and requirements with what each of the products above offer “out of the box”, and to also produce customization points that will be required in the final site.

This process generally involves hands-on meetings, product demos, documenting and the like, all towards an effort to produce documentation outlining the User Experience supported with Use Cases and Business Requirements.

Design Phase

Approaching the design is probably one of the most challenging parts of any IT project, as it requires you to essentially build the solution on paper. However, in this situation we have to approach things a little differently.

Since we are not building everything from scratch, we have to create documentation that supports several key areas of the project:

• Integration Requirements – how each solution will integrate together and deliver functionality, such as “single sign on” and data sharing
• Customization Requirements – what parts of each solution need to be customized accross all 3 layers (UI, business logic, database)
• Physical Requirements – what type of hardware and networking equipment are needed to meet the demands of the site and each solution

These documents create a foundation for us to start the project and move towards the development phase with near 100% certainty as to what the final site should look like and function. Furthermore, these documents should dictate the tasks required by a developer to be heads down in the project without much concern on how everything should be done.

Next month I will post an update on this project, with details on how the design phase progressed.