Improved functionality for local youth social network

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Launched in 2003 as a nightclub photography site by Cape Town-based Charl Norman, Bradley Voges and Brendt Brooks, in 2006 www.blueworld.co.za evolved into an online social network, based on an open community model, that allows users to create a profile for interacting with friends or making new friends. It currently has 137 261 registered members.

“Most ambitious step”

“This is our most ambitious step towards bringing our local offering on par with international players. We have improved upon our current functionality and launched new areas to extend our offering to the community," says Norman, who is operations manager at Blueworld.

“The result has been encouraging. Our community has responded well to the upgrades and new additions as the website have been buzzing with new videos, blogs, photos and groups.

Blueworld users can now create an online presence by using tools such as blogging, video sharing, album uploading, tagging and creating groups. Users can also keep track of friend's activities and check out photos from the hottest events from around SA and even internationally.

“We wanted to cover more events and reach a wider audience so we have aligned our photography strategy to include covering 20twenty cricket matches, 21st birthday parties, concerts and activity on university campuses," says Voges, Blueworld business manager.

The photographs are placed on the site by 12 noon the following day for members to view.

Highlights

Highlights of the new functionality include activity pages, groups, the ability to customise profiles, mood status updates and improved privacy control.

“The activity page is a great tool to keep up to date on the site's activity or just your friends. By default when viewing the activity page, you will see the entire community's news or filter it to view just your friends. We took it further and enabled users to filter the activity to just view blogs, videos, photos or status updates from their friends or the entire community,” explains Norman.

“Users can customize their profile and groups to create a unique identity on Blueworld. There are a handful of colour themes to choose from and you can upload your own header image. We've restricted what the users can customise to keep a structure and standard to the profiles and groups but enable the users to be unique.

“No brainer”

“Groups have become very popular on international social destinations so it was a no brainer for us to add the area to the site. Users can create groups, customise them, upload photos and videos, write on the group blog and invite their friends to join.”

With respect to privacy, users can now set the privacy of their content to either public - which will feature in the sub areas (eg blogs, videos, albums) - or set as private so only friends can see it. But by publishing content publically, people with similar interests are able to discover you and vice versa.

Users may also set their mood and add a small live update in their mini blog of what they're currently doing, feeling or dreaming of. Their mini updates will be visible to the community on the activity page. Users can then discover and contact other users that share the same mood eg excited, tired or sad.