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PEOPLE FINDING PEOPLE
Example People Matching Application
By including support for U.S. zipcode-based geographical searches (or U.K. postcode-based searches as of 1.04), Red Queen allows for the construction of generalized social networks, where members can find other members in the same vicinity with similar interests. For instance, if you run any kind of website that facilitates local events, you can hook up event organizers. If you run a site dedicated to opera you can facilitate meetings between opera lovers in the same city. Or perhaps you run a site for cooking fanatics who would love to get together with others in their neighborhood to swap recipes and educate each other in the fine art of thai cuisine. Your members need not be seeking romantic relationships in order to implement Red Queen as social network facilitator. But in this tutorial we'll assume that's the kind of thing you are hoping to build, as it is one of the most easily understood of the social networks to be found online. The most interesting, and novel, kinds of social networks have yet to be thought up and implemented. The challenges involved in constructing those are left to you.
Note also that while this tutorial discusses how to set up U.S. zipcode-based searching by adding a column with a ZIPCODE Form Type to one of your tables, the discussion applies equally well to U.K. poscode-based searching. The only difference is that the Form Type of the search column in question should instead be chosen as POSTCODE_UK.
The Law of Large Numbers
Before you jump into the construction of a social network, consider the numbers involved. How many members are likely to end up in your network? It is an important consideration, as the value of a network (to the webmaster) generally increases as the square of the number of members. This means that when the number of members doubles, the number of member-to-member interactions has the potential to go up by a factor more like 4 than 2. But if your members are spread out, it may take a long time to get a critical local density in each region. If you have 1000 members but they are on average 50 miles apart from each other, that's a problem. They are far less likely to interact physically than if they were only separated by 5 miles. Therefore, for the average webmaster, a social network is more likely to be successful if your member base is already fairly localized. For instance, if your site targets the Jewish community on Manhatten Island there is a very good chance that the introduction of a matchmaking service is going to be well-received and successful. A thousand members in that community will have little trouble finding each other.
Rudiments of Online Dating
This tutorial is meant to be self-contained, but it is derived in part from earlier tutorials. In particular, in Tutorial Three we saw how the Team, or Network, branch of the application could be enhanced with member galleries. All of that discussion applies directly to the current situation. The only difference here is that instead of images of artistic works, each member is likely to upload photographic images of themselves in an effort to convey a sense of their physical appearance. Of course, the art to successful matchmaking involves far more than this. In truth, nobody really understands how to do successfully online matchmaking, so you get a great deal of leeway when thinking up such a service. But there are a few key pieces of information that your members are going to want access to regarding the people they are performing searches on. One is gender, the second is age, and the third is location, or proximity to the searcher. Gender we will consider explicitly here, as the data type used to store and display the information can by used to collect a great number of personal-information fields relevant to dating. The age field deserves a special section of its own, and in fact was covered in the Age Field discussion of Tutorial Two. Nonetheless, we will repeat it here. Location will be entered as a zipcode, so we are assuming that the application explicitly targets U.S. residents. The details involved in adding these fields will be presented in ADDING EXTRA FIELDS.
As mentioned in other tutorials, if you have an online community of any type, supported, say, by a forum application like vBulletin, you can significantly enhance the desire on the part of members to get involved with your site by giving them the extra degree of social networking that Red Queen provides. You can custom tailor this part of your site to fit the kind of community you support. Further more, your members are likely to provide very good ideas about how to provide that level of customization.
Once again, for the purposes of tutorial instruction, we conjure up a fictional Red Queen webmaster named Kyla--an offline matchmaking consultant who has decided to bring her business to the web. Presently her online members use InvisionBoard to communicate. She has been using the Item branch of Red Queen to have her members review the various online dating services, and now she intends to use the program to provide her own service. For this, Red Queen is perfectly suited. Each member will get their own member profile page PLUS a separate detail page, complete with a gallery of photographs and one or more pages of member reviews (should they wish to be reviewed). A forward glance at the end result of Kyla's work can be seen on this member detail page.
It is questionable whether or not a dating application might have room for compartmentalization of members by allowing them to join separate Teams or Networks. But if that seems like a neat thing to do you can offer it. For instance, if Kyla was addressing the Jewish community of Manhatten Island she could offer, in addition to member searches, the ability for members to rate one another on the successfulness of individual first dates. To this end she might create these "Networks" according to the type of date embarked upon:
- First Dates > Winers and Diners
- First Dates > Beach Partiers
- First Dates > Museum Lovers
- First Dates > Central Park Picnickers
The members themselves would join the individual networks according to the kind of first dates they preferred, with the expectation that a good review would increase their "date-ability". For each of the networks added, Kylar would customize the selection of dating attributes that can be rated by the members. For instance, the attributes she might use for the Beach Partiers network:
- Punctuality
- Appearance Matches Photos
- Agreeable Personality
- Willingness To Get Wet
- Would Date Again
Obviously, choosing the right selection of attributes for your networks will increase the likelihood that members will submit ratings after going on a date. In Kyla's case, this would translate into increased member appreciation of the service she offered.
Now that you have some idea of what Kyla hopes to achieve it is time to jump to the next section and see how she goes about doing it.
Next Section: ADDING TEAMS / NETWORKS
Documentation
Documentation for Red Queen, which is entirely separate from these tutorial pages, is an ongoing project (as is this tutorial). You should find that there is sufficient information in the Red Queen User Manual to answer most of your technical needs. Suggestions for improvement to both the User Manual and this tutorial are always welcomed. As more users gain experience with Red Queen, and issues are resolved for its application in different areas, information gained from that experience will make its way into these pages.
Note: If you cannot find the information you are looking for in this tutorial, try the Red Queen User Manual which you should find far more comprehensive than the instructional dialog found here.
Copyright © 2004 Random Mouse Software. All Rights Reserved.