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.