SideSparks Chat Corner for Boards.ie

balu · 15-10-2008 9:59am #1

Hey Guys,

I'm a student at the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology and during the summer a friend of mine and I were developing www.sidesparks.com

We want to enable users to communicate in real-time with like-minded people. Today we were launching our new feature "Chat Corner". Actually this is what you see at the bottom right at www.sidesparks.com

It displays the current amount of users online and people in the chat.

So actually as I'm active in the Galway forum here at boards.ie I really think (and not only because I own sidesparks.com) that it would be cool to be able to talk to other guys from Galway in real-time.

We could configure it, that it would display the amount of people online in the Galway forum (and only there) and people in the chat.

What do you guys think?

So far,
Felix

P.S.: I don't really have a plan now to advertise my product, as I have no budget. If anybody knows business angels or VCs who might be interested please let me know

Ponster · 15-10-2008 10:11am

Very sexy idea that seems to work very well.

I think that it may run into some moderation issues to have something like that hosted on Boards.ie though you never know. We'll push Cult in the direction of this thread...

Fajitas! · 15-10-2008 10:51am

There's another chat feature that's similar to that, afaik.

I can't remember the name for the life of me though... Anyways, it's biggest problem was that anyone could sign up as anyone, so someone could be tarnishing your good name

CuLT · 15-10-2008 10:56am

Anything like that we put into boards.ie is going to have to be linked into vBulletin's authentication system, be able to physically handle more than 3000 concurrent users, sanely organise that many, people will need to be able to opt out of it and it's going to need to use vBulletin's tiered permissions system and group handling.

I don't like the idea of limiting it to one forum, personally. Seems mean, and would have questionable value in implementing.

It's a good idea ( even if it is cribbed from Facebook/Bebo etc

) but I think I'm going to have to write the boards.ie equivalent myself if someone upstairs ever decides on it.
Commendable project though, quite progressive, site looks good too.

Ponster · 15-10-2008 11:30am

yes. Site looks a lot more professional than I expected.

balu · 15-10-2008 11:56am

Thanks for your replies so far lads!

Actually it would be possible to "integrate" SideSparks to Boards.ie without big effort even with the existing boards.ie users. I was thinking about this issue already.

So then nobody would be able to log-in with a name owned by someone else.

Technically we would prepare a php file for boards.ie. The boards.ie administrator would have to change some values like database name, tables and columns that may be checked.

So. Actually we would not have access to the boards.ie db. It would work like this:
Someone wants to log-in with username and password to the chat > the SideSparks.com server sends a request to the boards.ie server: "is this username and password correct"? > the php file at Boards.ie checks and sends back a true or false to our server. Pretty simple, working and secure.

Regarding the huge amount of visitors at boards.ie: I already own a high traffic website with 250.000 unique visitors monthly, so I know how to handle with huge amounts of data.

This would also work with all different forums at boards.ie.

balu · 15-10-2008 12:00pm

Oh. Btw: There would be the same moderators in the chat as here on boards.ie
Moderators would be able to kick and ban users from the chat.

And one more thing:
When you open the SideSparks Chat, in the top right corner you see "Channels". All boards.ie channels would be listed there (one channel per forum?)

tbh · 15-10-2008 12:34pm

Good job lads. Just had a look at the site, and I'm impressed. I'm sure you'll do well with it.

Overheal · 15-10-2008 12:48pm

This would be great for live feed watching: after all theres a presidential debate on tonight, and im sure the soccer forum could find a use for it.

CuLT · 15-10-2008 1:38pm

Hmm, actually the idea that I was toying with was more IM now that I think about it. User to User.

General chat would take away conversation from the forums.

togster · 15-10-2008 1:40pm

Very impressive. Never have guessed ye came out of gmit

balu · 15-10-2008 1:48pm

togster wrote: »

Very impressive. Never have guessed ye came out of gmit

lol. I like it though! You get to know a pretty wide range of technologies and you can work deeper into certain topics if you like to.

btw: I'm going to do my Masters of Science in Stockholm so see you in Sweden

Overheal · 15-10-2008 1:50pm

CuLT wrote: »

Hmm, actually the idea that I was toying with was more IM now that I think about it. User to User.

General chat would take away conversation from the forums.

What about Shoutboxes?

togster · 15-10-2008 1:55pm

balu wrote: »

lol. I like it though! You get to know a pretty wide range of technologies and you can work deeper into certain topics if you like to.

btw: I'm going to do my Masters of Science in Stockholm so see you in Sweden

Now if we had sidesparks we could do this much quicker

Went to gmit myself and i loved it!

Stockholm rocks btw

CuLT · 15-10-2008 2:02pm

Overheal wrote: »

What about Shoutboxes?

A bit naff, don't you think?

Alanstrainor · 15-10-2008 2:11pm

Just chatting to baku there on the chat box doofer on sidesparks, and i think it could work well if it was incorporated into boards.ie somehow. Although, i can see madness ensuing in the likes of after hours....but on the likes of my forums i think it could work quite well.
Just my 0.02

Overheal · 15-10-2008 2:25pm

CuLT wrote: »

A bit naff, don't you think?

¿qué?

edit: wow it had a wiki page.

DeVore · 15-10-2008 4:34pm

Its a nice idea but our numbers break it tbh. It becomes a hothouse for all sorts of unpleasant practises like grooming or even just your regular muppets causing trouble. Suggesting the moderators could look after it is not thinking ahead, it would LOAD work onto our moderators and require constant attention, something almost all of them would (quite rightly!) baulk at.
IRC taught us a great deal about the perils of live chat, it is a significantly different beast to be honest.

Its not a bad idea in itself because of these things, its just a bad idea for us imho

DeV.

Crash · 15-10-2008 4:54pm

DeVore wrote: »

It becomes a hothouse for all sorts of unpleasant practises like grooming

Look, if you hadn't said you were 13, I wouldn't have showed up at your front door naked wearing nothing but a smile. You're as much at fault here as I am.

Bob the Builder · 15-10-2008 6:26pm

I think it's a good idea. But in it's current form, too hard to manage.

There's a whole load of space in the top right corner. Perhaps, the module can be inserted there, and that would allow on on-the-fly user to user private messaging system that would become embedded in the top right corner, where users could shout at each other, or even tweet.ie embedded object.

Of course there's the big ad, but that, i imagine, could be reduced in size slightly, or moved around up there. At the end of the day, if people's eyes are going to be floating around up there anyway, surely the size of the advertisement wouln't make a huge difference?

Before people get wild ideas, I would like to mention that I refuse to support any ideas unless there's an on/off button.

SideSparks Chat Corner for Boards.ie

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