Progress of EasySocial 2.0

There has been many questions and inquiries about EasySocial 2.0 and today I would like to spare some time to post some updates about it. Just in case some of you aren't aware of this, we are still in the midst of developing EasySocial 2.0 and EasySocial 2.0 will be one of our biggest updates for EasySocial.

Bringing Sexy Back

EasySocial now comes with a brand spanking new look! With all the modern web design these days which inspired us to have a clean and minimalist concept. When I mean brand new UI, I mean literally everything! We have redesigned almost 99% of the UI on EasySocial including every single stream objects.

We also have a style guide in place to ensure that the look and feel throughout EasySocial is standardized.

Pages Support

One of the most anticipated feature of EasySocial 2.0, is the Pages functionality. This is pretty identical to a profile page, a Page would allow users to create their Business Pages, Club Pages or any other nodes within a Social Network.

Pages would also incorporate custom fields and access control similar to what you have already seen on Groups and Events.

Twitter Authentication

A single Sign On is a pretty useful tool and it helps with conversion rates. We noticed that with EasySocial, there are at least 50% more sign up rates with Facebook. We are now adding Twitter into the single sign on stack to increase sign up rates. I am looking forward to see your sites convert more sign ups with this pretty nifty tool!

Reduced Javascript Footprints

We have also reduced the number of HTTP requests made to render javascript (from 6 requests to only just 2) on the site and reduced the size of the scripts file. By doing this, your site would load less resources and your hosting provider would definitely love this update. Apart from this, images are now using css sprites to reduce the number of requests made on the site as well.

P/S: We are still fine tuning this and I am personally hoping that we could exclude jQuery from our source file and to rely jQuery from Joomla instead.

Massive Code Refactoring

One of the priority on this release is to ensure that the software can be easily maintained throughout the development cycle. By refactoring on our existing codes, it reduces bottlenecks and at the same time increased productivity as it is now more flexible and extensible. We anticipated EasySocial 2.0 to be almost 4x faster than EasySocial 1.4 :)

Brand New Conversations

Conversations in EasySocial 2.0 just got better. After improving the conversations on EasyDiscuss, it seems to gained some popularity. The new layout will definitely be more engaging and interactive among users on your Social Network site.

Advance Searching

We had Advanced Search for users prior to EasySocial 2.0 but we have now also added Advanced Search for Groups, Events and Pages in EasySocial. This would allow users on the site to quickly locate and search for their favorite groups, events and pages.

Moderation Workflow

Prior to EasySocial 2.0, moderation is the real a pain in the a**. Users who have already submitted their groups or events would not be able to find these items once the admin rejects their requests to publish these items. In EasySocial 2.0, users would be able to find all items that are rejected right from the respective pages so that they could fix their errors and request for submission again.

More Administration Enhancements

With EasySocial 2.0, we have also added the ability for site administrator's to be able to modify themes and email files from the back-end. Gone are the days where you have to manually upload files to ftp on your server to modify these files. Application management would be a breeze on EasySocial 2.0 as we will be enhancing the Apps Directory in the extension itself. This would allow you to update / purchase / install apps without having to manually access the Apps Directory :)

As always, these are just some of the major updates that I am outlining here but there are over 450 other improvements that is done on EasySocial 2.0 which I can't list them right now :)