Firedog was responsible for designing the original www.londonparties.co.uk social networking portal which first introduced the concept of social networking within the nightclub/entertainment sector in March 2006. Based on the highly successful uptake of the first portal, the NHE Group commissioned Firedog in May 2007 to design and build their refreshed Web 2.0 social networking portal.
What was Firedog's solution?
We felt that the new portal needed to offer extremely sexy functionality but it needed to be functional and something their members would be comfortable using, therefore usability was a key consideration across the design. Firedog’s strategic consultancy extended to the overall portal logic and the inclusion of revenue generation tools within the portal, whilst the relatively low page load times allow a fast browsing experience. Firedog wanted to create a sleek, glossy, aspirational site which members would want to come back to time and time again to effectively relive their offline LP experiences online the next day.
Firedog deliverables included:
Web strategy / objective setting
Full portal architecture
40 wireframes
Front-end design concepts
Build, test & deployment
Key portal functionality highlights include:
3rd party ad serving capability
FaceBook guest-list API so LP events can be set up via FaceBook
Friends with benefits (a marketplace for trading)
Profile activity index (who’s active and just how active have they been)
My promo (promote yourself, your band, your event, create your own blog etc.)
Upload videos (links to YouTube offering your own video on profile page)
