Featuring - can be better than Ning
Ning To Jamroom
Cool... I figured it could be easily done. I think I almost had most of the basics figured myself, except I couldn't get the "initialized" view to change when placing on different pages, and I wasn't too sure on making it rotate randomly through a quota's content.
Adding weighting and manual override controls, would be completely out of my league to code, but they would be nice options.
However, even a basic version of this will accomplish 3 things:
1) A familiar but constantly changing view on the top of every content page, just like the featured section on Ning.
2) It will help monetize quotas. If paid artists and their content are getting automatically rotated through featured spotlighting, it is a selling point for subscriptions. Free artists wouldn't get that service. If there are levels (Gold Artist, Platinum Artist) then the more expensive subscription can have with more weighting on the content rotation.
3) Some of the pages (like songs) look kind of "bland". Having 4 decent sized album covers on top, that are rotating every page view (or at least on a timer), will make the page more attractive and visually interesting.
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I think most Ning migrants (especially the non coders), will want some version of featuring "out of the box" - it's something they were used to.
It should at least be an option, in some form or another. I wasn't a big fan of the Ning version because manually featuring to keep views and feeds fresh was time consuming. This automated system (especially with manual override, weighting, and page load rotation) would be "the bomb".
I definitely want it, and I've set up my quotas so that paying artists receive this service. Now I'm just looking for a way to have reality catch up to the dream...
updated by @ken-rich: 12/29/14 09:23:54AM
