The grid launches new website, and many new features!
The Grid has done a major revamp of their mobile social network which was just announced on Vincent maher’s blog, who currently heads up the social networking portfolio for Vodacom.
Vincent on the new website look
It is quite unusual to start with a mobile social network and retroactively translate this into a web environment, so a lot of thinking went into how the visual language and the user experience of these two media differ. From the outset it was clear that we needed something that fits with what web users understand a social network to be, given that they are probably regular visitors of Facebook, Twitter and blogs. As the production of the site unfolded, it became clear that the narrow, low-bandwidth display of our mobile application has profoundly influenced the way we treat data structures. One of the biggest adjustments that we had to make technically was to allow for richer data for display in lists and detail pages about content and users. Another was the inherent difficulty in synchronizing instant messaging with all the other components of the system.
Some of the new features include
- New & faster maps running on their own servers
- Twitter integration, which pushes your status to twitter & includes your location
- Inline IM messaging, you can chat via the WEB interface or Java client
- Real time alerts while using the web interface without having to visit the alerts page
They have also launched a location based advertising network
One of the most significant elements of the new web site and Java application is that some of the advertisements are delivered based on the location of your cellphone. For launch we have partnered with Nandos, Sportscene, Jay Jays and Synergy pharmacies to deliver advertising within radii ranging from 0 – 10km from your physical location, delivered via the web. When an ad is location-targeted on the web you will see a line of text below it that tells you how far away from you the physical location is. Nandos have used this to pinpoint some of their stores in Cape Town on our maps and have customized each ad to that specific location.
The Java application has also been updated, and Vodacom has also launched an OpenGrid API, which was used to build the new website.
You can read more at Vincents blog.
