LO4: Designs for my new social media app.

 

This is the front page, it is designed so that the app will bring up a number of suggested videos for the user to watch. They will change depending on the type of videos that are being watched after each use.

This is where the user can message people so that they now if the person they are sending a request to is online or is free to watch something.

 

This is the viewing screen whereby the user can add friends to watch there they are watching, and they can also mute the sound of the chat audio if they feel it is just getting in the way of the film. 

For my app to keep up with the W3C standards my app will be made available to anyone who had a internet connection. This app will be free to download however the user can pay a fee to upgrade the app to gain more features. My app will be at the standard resolution for all smartphones therefore it would fit the screen perfectly however, is the user is streaming a video from the internet then the quality would depend on the internet speeds that the suer currently has.  

  

LO3 - Task 5: Planning a social media app.

A) Purpose:
The main purpose of my app idea is to allow people watch videos on any platform at the same time. While they are watching the videos they would also be video calling each other. There will be a total of three pages on the app and to navigate to each of the pages you swipe left or right depending on what page you are currently on. The first page will be the homepage and that page will have a column of all the videos that you have watched along with anything that you have not finished watching. Swiping left from this page takes you to your friends list page, this is where you can view all of the people that you have added, it will also suggest people to add based on the your friends list and what you have in common with other people based on what you have watched. The final page have a film boarder taking up the page and this is where you share your screen with the other person. The main purpose of this is allow people to stay connected with each other through films. On social media sites like Facebook if you want one of your friends to watch a video that you have seen you would have to share it and wait for them to see it. However with this you could both see it and enjoy the moment together.

B) Content:
There are two ways in which you can stream your screen to other people, the first way is screen sharing where the receiver can see what ever is on the screen of the person who is board casting it. And the other way is through video files. The user can decide to use a number of files that is supported by the app, this includes:

• .mp4
• .wmv
• Flash Video (.flv) 

My app is going to consist of three main pages, the first page is where the user can select the video he wants to watch. The user's video feed will depend on all of the videos that he has watched in the past so that he can easily find new videos that he would want to watch in the future. The user doesn't really need to go on the app every time they want to the stream there screen to other people, if they press and hold onto any video then they will get the option to watch it with someone else as long as they have registered to the app. One the second page there will be a list of all the people that the user has added, from here the user can see if the person that they want to share with is online. The user can also link other social media accounts to this app so that they can add people through apps like Facebook or Twitter. The last page on the app lets the user see what all of their friends are watching and they can request the watch with them. When the app is downloaded the user will have to accept the terms and conditions so that they can allow the app to access some of the information.

C) Target user:
The intended target audience for this app would be 55% male and 45% female that are in the age range 16 - 24 and the would be in the category ABC1. This is because this is the age gap where people tend to sign up to social media app and who use their phone the most since they where born at the time where technology was just starting to bloom. 

D) Possible revenue streams:

The user can the upgrade their app so that they can get more features, to upgrade the app it would cost the user 99p. The main way for my social media app to make money is advertising and I intend on having two types of advertising, banners and in-video advertising. Who ever wants to advertise on the app would have to pay a fee for it to be displayed, then whenever someone goes on the ad or they watch it on a video it will generate money. The money generated is then split between the advertiser and the person who owns the app. The other way that the app could make money is if it goes into partnership with another company, the best option is if it went into partnership with a company like youtube. That way I would have permission to use YouTube's videos and in return there would be an option for the user to use the app through YouTube. 

E) Launch Date:

F) Legal an ethical:

One of the legal problems that I need to consider is having the permissions needed to get access to all of the videos. This app makes use of videos from all over the internet so I cannot just use them because of the copyright infringement law. The other legal aspect that I would have to consider is protecting people's information. To use the app people have to sign up to it so I would have access to all of their information, if the app is not properly secured that could result in my facing legal problems is the information was to leak out. People can change the privacy settings on the app once they have downloaded it, some people may not want others knowing what they are watching all of the time so they can change the mode of the app to private so that they can appear offline to other people. Since the main purpose of the app is to watch videos you user would not need to add any personal information when they sign up, they would only need their email address nd they would need to create a password.

One of the companies that I need to look at with regards to the legal aspect of the app would be the WaSP (Web Standards Project) they hosted projects that where focused on bringing relevant organisations closer to standards compliance. The company has a number of tests to see whether or not he social media app/website fits their standards. My social media app/website would need two tests, Acid1 and Acid2 since test in the programming language that would most likely be made in. 

The Acid1 test allows browsers and other rendering engines to test compliance with HTML 4 and CSS 1 specifications.

The Acid2 test allows browsers and other rendering engines to test compliance with CSS 1 and 2 specifications.

One problem that the app my face is people not wanting to give the app permission to access some of the information on their phone and if they don't give the app permission then it won't work for the user. The last problem that the app would face is the performance. Some phones my not be able to run all the things that the app requires, also this app my deplete the phone battery life very quickly since i would be very demanding. 

LO2 - Task 4: Be able to generate ideas for a new social media website. (Let's share, Pocket Vlog)

Let's share

A) Purpose:
The main purpose of my app idea is to allow people watch videos on any platform at the same time. While they are watching the videos they would also be video calling each other. There will be a total of three pages on the app and to navigate to each of the pages you swipe left or right depending on what page you are currently on. The first page will be the homepage and that page will have a column of all the videos that you have watched along with anything that you have not finished watching. Swiping left from this page takes you to your friends list page, this is where you can view all of the people that you have added, it will also suggest people to add based on the your friends list and what you have in common with other people based on what you have watched. The final page have a film boarder taking up the page and this is where you share your screen with the other person. The main purpose of this is allow people to stay connected with each other through films. On social media sites like Facebook if you want one of your friends to watch a video that you have seen you would have to share it and wait for them to see it. However with this you could both see it and enjoy the moment together.

B) Format/Style:
This idea will be available as both a website and an app, this is because the majority of people now watch videos online whether that is through a smartphone, tablet or on the computer. There are two ways in which you can stream your screen to other people, the first way is screen sharing where the receiver can see what ever is on the screen of the person who is board casting it. And the other way is through video files. The user can decide to use a number of files that is supported by the app, this includes:

• .mp4
• .wmv
• Flash Video (.flv)

When it comes to the design of my app I don't plan on having any pictures on the app because a lot of the content in my app are videos, so the pictures that you would see on the app would be to thumbnail of the videos on the app. I want the design for my app idea to represent the films that were around before the 1970's where most of the films where black  and white.

This is the type of boarder that I am looking to have on all of the pages on my app. 

I want this to be part of my logo for the app, this would also act as the button to take the user back to the home page.

I would also like to have a font that is similar to the font that you would see at the front of the cinema back in the 1970's 

C)

To give an accurate evaluation of the target audience for my app I have looked at companies like netflix as they have a theme that us similar to mine. The target audience for this app would be people between the age of 16-24 with about 60% of them being female and the other 40% being male. The audience would want to use this product because it allows people to watch things together without the having to be in the same place, this would allow other people to connect like this who could be miles apart from each other. 

There will be two versions of this app, one which is free and one which you have to pay for. The one which us free allows you share any video that is online to a person of your choice and it will also have the the instant messaging section with it for times when you don't want to video chat. The version that you have to pay for has more features on it, on this one you can stream your screen to the other person so anything that you can see the receiver can see it too. This also allows you to share something that stored on your phone and not online. This version will also allow you to store any of your videos to the online storage. 

D)

Pocket Vlog 

A)

The main purpose for this app idea is to allow people to make vlogs and upload them to the internet through there phone. There will be three main parts to the app, the first part is the homepage. This where the user records their video and the video can only be a maximum of 10 minutes long. The user can also upload a video from their own phone storage. Once this is done they are taken to the next page, this page allows them to edit the video in any way they like and they will also render the video on this page. After this the user can select from a range of social media sites to upload there vlog to. When uploading the vlog the user can the let the app run in the background so they wont have to stay on the app at all times. 

B) Format/Style:

This idea will only be available as an app and this is because I want to make it easier for people to vlog, this will allow them to do everything from there phone so they won't need a carry around a laptop to edit and upload their vlogs. When it come to the design of the app each of the pages will have a different design.

1.

I want the first page to have this look, since this is where the user records their vlog. 

2.

I want the second page to have three main parts to it where the user can edit the sound and pictures on different sections. I want it to be similar to some of the adobe software as there are easier to use than some of the other editing software. 

3.

This is what I want the editing of the video timeline to look like, where one half will be where to can cut bits of the video and add transitions and the other half will show you what the video looks like now. 

4.

C) Target suer/membership:

The target audience for my app would be 60% males and 40% female and this is because the majority of the vloggers are male, they would also be in the age range of 18 - 24. The audience would want to use this app because it makes it easier for people to record and edit their vlogs on the go. Normally it would take the whole day for someone record edit and upload the video to Youtube however, this app would make it possible to do it in under an hour. This would be especially useful for people who travel a lot.

This app would be free to anyone who wants to use it and it would only require you to sign up once. There are two ways in which the user can sign up to this app, the first method would require the user to provide their email and create a password. And they would also need to have an account on at least one of the video sharing websites e.g. YouTube. Or the user can login with their Google account as you link all or your social media through Google plus.

LO1 - Task 3: To explore commerical uses for social meida products.

Facebook:
A) Advertising
A lot of Facebook's advertising is paid advertising on a cost per click basis. So if the advertiser is paying £3 per click on their ad then that £3 would go on the network feed, once it is on the network feed it will be vivsble on Facebook. Everytime the ad is clicked £3 will be accumulated, you will not get all of the £3 but you would get a portion of it.
Facebook is a very effective way of advertising and that is because their ads are targeted towards poeple according to what is on your Facebook profile e.g:

• Age
• Location
• Education
• Interests

B) Viral Marketing
Facebook is one of the best places for viral marketing due to the mass amount of people that use it and that the social media was designed for sharing information with other people. However one of the down sides to this is that if the feature does not become popular it will most likely disappear before it gets to the majority of the Facebook users.

SnapChat:
A lot of SnapChats advertising is paid for advertising, the company that sells the ad campaign casues the revenue distribution between SnapChat and its partner to vary however, it is estimated that the advertisements are usually work between 10p - 15p. It may not seem like much but adverts are are estimated to be seen 500,000 to 1,000,000 per day. SnapChat also allows advertisers to purchase sponsored geofilters for snaps, the first company to try this was McDonalds, they paid for a branded geofilter which covered all of its restaurants locations in the US.
B) Viral Marketing
The main purpose of Snapchat is sharing photos and videos with your friends so this is ideal for any sort of promotion campaigns. A lot of the campaigns that are passed around are in the form 10 second videos and some of them are artistic visuals. Because all of the ads are in the form of stories the users can view as many time as they want to and each time more money is generated. Some of the ads on snapchat will redirect the user to the company's website if they interact with the ad.
C) Product and service reviews:
Because of the nature of snapchat reviewing products on it isn't really ideal since the videos can only be a maximum of 10 seconds long. Normally if a company wanted a product review on snapchat they would have created an event on snapchat where the users can send in there snaps and it would appear on the company's discovery page.

Instagram:
A) Advertising:
All of Instagram ads are targeted by location, gender and age. So if the product you was advertising was age sensitive e.g. and alcohol brand, then the ad would only be made available for users who age Instagram knows. Instagram ads operate with a fixed CPM (Cost Per Mile) cost, it is usually £20 fo images and £27 for videos. However the ads won't be accessible for everyone because if you want to set up an advertising campaign you will have to spend at least £50,000 in the UK and that figure varies around the world.
B) Viral Marketing:
Viral marketing on Instagram is increasing each year due to all of the content on Instagram is either an picture or a video. One of the down sides of this is that all of the existing trends to stay around become bigger where as all of the newer trends gets shadowed by the older owns. However as long as what you are advertising is part of one of the existing trends then it is almost certain that it will get the publicity.
C) Product and service reviews:
Product reviews aren't really popular on Instagram as other people tend to use Facebook or Twitter however, Instagram would be one of the best platform for reviewing products. But, when people do reviews on Instagram they do tend to become quite popular as other people would tend to trust product reviews from people who are not bias towards to company.

LO1 - Task 2: Amylase positive and negative social effects fo social media products.

Facebook:
 Advantages:
Facebook is free and since it has over 900 millions users it is the best way to communicate with other people. One of the other advantages that facebook has is that it is a great why to keep in touch with friends and family that live far away. With instant messaging and video chat, facebook is that perect envirment to stay connected. With status updates, photos and profile information it can keep you up to date on what it happening with your close ones.Facebook makes meeting new people extremely easy people due to that fact that it allows you to add up to thousands of friends. Because of the massive amount of users Facebook has, a lot of companies and other individuals use facebook to promote events and services. Facebook has a lot of opportunities for self promotion, making it great for anyone who needs to find clients and to get supporters.

Disadvantages:
One of the disadvantages of facebook is that it is a perfect platform for cyber-bullying. They can harass or even gang up on someone a lot easier than they would be able to face to face as there aren't any moderators around to monitor what people are saying. Facebook is also very stalker friendly. Someone who you don't know could add you and get access to all of you information, this may include your phone number and house address. They would also be able to go through all ogf your past photos without you knowing anything.

Instagram:
Advantages:
Instagram is very good at there privacy, the users have full control of their privacy settings so the risk of stalking is very low. If you change your settings to private, then if a person wanted to follow you they would have to request it. Also all of the person's photos and videos are blocked to anyone who isn't in there friends list. Instagram allows users to connect with other people through the use of photos and videos, this can be seen as better means of communication as you can see what the other person is doing or where they are going. Instagram also allows people to follow your favourite celebrities so can have an insight into what their lives are about.

Disadvantages:
Instagram allows you to put location hashtags under any of your photos, with these two combined it can be very easy for people to stalk you as there would have a picture along with a description of where you are. Another issue with Instagram is with their new system whereby people can send photos and videos to each other as a direct message. This has been known to promote 'Sexting' as the senders know that no one else can see what ever they have sent other than the intended receiver.

Snapchat:
Advantages:
Snapchat has a lot of fun filters that people can use wether it is for a photo or a video and also, these filters are constantly update so there will always be something new to try out. The pictures that you send out only last for a maximum of ten seconds so people aren't really concerned about other people having a permament copy of all of their photos.

Disadvantages:
Although snapchat has tried its best to protect people and make it a completely safe app to use there are still some issues that are bug enough to make people worry. One of this issues are screen shots, when snapchat first started people begin to screenshot pictures there where being sent to them as the pictures would only last for 10 seconds. This became a problem because a small minority of people had started sexting through snapchat as they though that no one would be able to get a permanent copy of the picture that they have sent. To combat this snapchat had put in a feature that would tell the sender of the picture what whenever someone has take a screen shot of your picture. But this did little to help as some people created thrid party apps that would allow other people the screen shot a picture without the sender knowing anything about it.

LO1 Task 1: Understanding existing social media products.

The 5 social media products that I am going to analyse are:

• Instagram
• SnapChat
• Tumblr
• Facebook
• Pinterest 

Facebook 

Purpose:
Facebook was created so that people can communicate with each other and meet mew people. People can create a profile filled with pieces of information about themselves. Sometimes Facebook would suggest some other people for you to add based on the information on your profile.

Content:
One of the main features of Facebook is the News feed, this makes up most of the Facebook page.The News Feed allows you to see what other people (your friends) have posted on Facebook, the news feed doesn't update constantly so you have to refresh the page when you want to see new stuff things that people have posted. One of the other things that Facebook has is the instant messaging application, this allows you to communicate with other people in a similar way to texting. Each user also gets a personal timeline, anything that is associated with the user for example photos, videos and shared posts are collected over time and it builds up on your personal timeline.

Target user/Membership:
The audience demographic for Facebook has changed over the years, when it first started the audience demographic for Facebook where people who are in the age range of 14 - 25 with 60% of them being female and 40% of them being male. However over the years more people started to use it and business owners used it as a means of advertising. Now there has been 25% decrease in the number of 13-24 users however, there has been an 80% increase in the number of users who are over 54 years old.

Sources of revenue:
Facebook's main source of revenue is advertising however, when compared with other social media networks Facebook has a lower the click-through rate and this has a negative impact on their revenue. The reason for this is that the younger users of Facebook install adblcokers on their web browsers and their devices so that they can see anything of the ads on Facebook.

Legal and ethical issues:
The rapid growth of Facebook has produced a number of legal issues which include:

• Cyberstalking.
• Cyberbullying.
• Privacy.
• 3rd party advertising.

The potential for cyberstalking on Facebook has increased of the past few years due to a wide variety and a easy access to personal information. Users of Facebook regularly include the email addresses, phone numbers, home addresses and other personal information as part of their profile. when this information is put on a public page it immediately opens up the user to being stalked by anyone on Facebook. This problem ties in with privacy, on top of all the information above, statues updates often give away more information than intended. At one point Facebook had considered expanding its own messaging system to include a email platform however, a lot of concerns quickly popped up as people started to question the wisdom in allowing Facebook access to even more sensitive information contained from personal emails. 

There are a few ethical issues that arise from Facebook, one of theses things is that impact it has on other people. Recent studies have shown that Facebook causes negative effects on self-esteem,  with people posting things like holiday photos triggers feeling of envy in other people. This has led to some countries either banning Facebook temporarily or permanently. In Bangladesh, the government has blocked Facebook, WhatsApp, Tango, Viper and many other sites since November 2015.   

Instagram:
Purpose:
The main purpose of Instagram is to share information with other people through the use of photos, the information that you share on this social network app can either be seen by your friends and family or to the general public.

Content:
Instagram uses a follower model that is similar to Twitter, if the user sets their settings to private then you would have to request the follow them and until they say yes you cannot see any of their photos or videos. On the interface there is a home tab and a popular tab. When the user is on the home tab they will only see one photo or video at a time and the timeline will consist of people that you follow. The popular tab shows you multiple pictures or videos at a time. All of the pictures or videos that you see on your popular tab are from users that are in some way connected to you. For example if someone that you follow is following Kanye west he would appear on your popular tab.

Target Audience:
The audience demographic for Instagram shows you that it has over 400 million active monthly users and over 75 million active daily users. Currently 51% of the total number of people that use Instagram are male with the other 49% being female, different trends do have a big impact on the what gender uses Instagram the most. With the rise in fitness regimes and dieting a lot more females have taken to using Instagram.

Sources of revenue:
In the early days of Instagram there was no source of revenue, the website was funded entirely by people investing in it, but in 2012 it was bought by Facebook and now they get their income from advertising. Because it is fundamentally a photo sharing app/website it is a natural platform.


SnapChat:
SnapChat is a photo and video messaging app, snapchat is unique in that all of the photos and videos only last for a small amount of time before they disappear forever.

Content:
Snapchat has many features that allow people to communicate with each other in different ways. The main feature is the home screen and that is where you can take a picture or record a video. From there you can add filters to what you have captured. Swiping left takes you to the instant message page where you take to other people through text, you can also send people private "Snaps" and look at the conversation that you have had with other people. If you swipe right from the home screen you can look at all of your friends stories. Stories are Snaps that last for one day and they can be constantly updated.

Target Audience:
There are around 200 million snapchat users and 70% of those users are female. Things like selfies are considered quite feminine so it makes sense why the majority of Snapchat users are female. 45% of snapchat users are aged between 18-24.

Sources fo revenue:
One of the ways that snapchat makes money is through advertising and this is done through one of snapchats features called 'Discover'. This feature allows media publishers to have daily content featured on the app and at the moment there are 12 publishers on Discover:
CNN, Comedy central, Cosmopolitan, Daily mail, ESPN, Food Network, National Geographic, People, Vice, Yahoo, Warner Music and Buzzfeed. Snapchat charges these companies £100 per thousand views. Companies can also pay to have themselves featured on the stories section of snapchat. the amount that companies have to pay depends on the their stature. Some top brand companies have paid around £750,000.

Legal and ethical:
Snapchat has come under some criticism for making 'Sexting' easier for people to do since the photos that you send only last for a maximum of 10 seconds. Because the pictures disappear people send inappropriate photos through Snapchat without fear. In the early days of snapchat people could screenshot your photos and you wouldn't know a thing. However this started to become a problem so the developers updated the app so that we a person screenshots your snapchat the sender will get a notification. However after some time people have developed apps that will save all of the photos that you receive without the senders knowing anything.
When snapchat had first started it had faced some legal backlash as there app was branded as evidence destroying, however the developers say that they are willing to cooperate with the authorities under these circumstances:

• Subpoenas
• Court Orders
• Search Warrants

However this doesn't mean that snapchat has a copy of all of the photos that people send, the developers doesn't want the users the fear that hackers may hack into the servers and release all of their private photos. But snapchat does keep records about the information on the snaps that are sent, such as what time the snaps where sent, who it was sent to and when it was opened.

a) purpose  (e.g. share information, communicate with friends, meet new people)

b) content  (e.g. personal blogs, photos, audio-visual clips, advertising)

c) target user/membership (e.g. audience demographics/friend networks)

d) sources of revenue (e.g. pay-per-click advertising, impression advertising, banner advertising, corporate pages

e) legal/ethical issues (e.g. libel, copyright, intellectual property rights, privacy, protection of personal data, bullying, stalking, impersonating others, misrepresentation.)