Finally today I’ve got enough time to start a draft about Open Classifieds 2.0.
Idea and Why?
It’s time for a change, there’s too many things that OC versions 1.x is not able to do.
For instance you can’t set location for your advertisements, there’s not a proper control panel (dashboard), no user registration, not possible to pay for ad, you can’t change language…
Also for an small project as OC, was ok to use procedure development, but now I’m finding really difficult to continue like this and I need to change the technology. Object Oriented is the most probably, using some sort of MVC (Model View Controler). As Framework I’m already working in one to manage DB, localization, cache ….
Open Classifieds it’s been downloaded 8.500 times, there’s lot of sites using OC, lot of people interested in the project and I feel for doing (with some help if it’s possible) something great.
Meet the Requirements
I did a bit of Requirement Engineering, to see what’s needed. But it’s difficult since the client can be anyone, not only me.
Please think that not any of this requirements are for sure. Your feedback in this is really important.
Functional requirements:
- Location: Would be possible to browse advertisements by location and do something like this USA->California->San Francisco
- User: To post you must be registered. To make it easier to the end user, OpenID, Google or Facebook to login would be possible. In this way always we could see the posts from a single user.
- Localization: To make localization possible, now would be possible to choose the currency and language by location. Also categories could be translated. Also each user could set this parameters in their own settings. For the translations probably I would use glotpress.org.
- Pay to post: Many people asked to be able to set a rate to pay if they want to post, this would be controlled by the category. This would use Paypal.
- Dashboard: right now all the options are stored as defines. The idea is to have it in a Table, to make lot easier to the admin to manage any configuration parameter.
No functional requirements:
- Object Oriented
- New DB model
- New framework
Possible deprecated:
- Post Type: there’s a need to set the type? like Need, Offer, Sell, Buy? it’s important? many Classifieds sites don’t use this
- Post Pictures: The path for the pictures, would be no longer stored in the DB, I don’t see it necessarily, since you can always read the content of the folder for each post and from there read the images.
With bubbl.us I did this brainstorming:
Any other ideas?
DB Model
This is an example for the requirements translated to DB:
Help is needed
List of things that I’m short of:
- Design: I need a logo, design for Open Classifieds, Open Classifieds site, dashboard, installation, forums…..I know it’s a lot of work but later you would get your part of glory, been part of the team. I’m sorry I’m that bad designer….
- SEO: Some SEO help would be much appreciate it since this would really help the project to succeed.
- Sponsors: We need sponsors to support this project, money it’s a need for hosting and at least cover minimal expenses such as rentals, drinks, transport… for meetings. Also Investment would be really great to move forward and welcome.
- Translators: As you can see my English it’s not the best ever…I’m still learning how to write properly…but anyway any other language would be great! sure!
- Marketing: What about someone to deal with affiliates, adsense and get new ways of making money or to advertise our software? if it’s you don’t wait!
Join the team
The perfect scenario would be to make an small team (3 people), to split work and do a meeting sometimes in Barcelona. I have a friend’s place (restaurant) that they will let us be there for free and they will provide us with some beverage.
Also this will may be good for you to know other people with your own interests, have some fun, drink some beers and who knows even make some money in the future (there’s already some income).
As part of the team you would be involved at any decision. There’s some market ideas I need to develop but they can be really good.
Please if you are interested send an email to chema (at) garridodiaz.com, of course never mind to talk Spanish 😉
Notes
This is just a draft. I have no idea when this would be possible, it depends of how much free time I have, how much help I get on developing and not any stopper (as another project).
But I really would like to have it done by/or during summer.
Any comment or feedback or help, everything it’s really welcome.