My Outdoor Adventure
MyOutdoorAdventure.com (MOA) aims at providing the #1 outdoors social network experience on the web. Dedicated to providing a place to connect "Those who have been" with "Those wanting to go", MOA is the home for the traveling and outdoor enthusiast.
Problem:
Provide a custom built and designed niche social network with an emphasis on standards compliance, intuitive user experience, future scalability and the foundation for online ad space. The social network experience of the site needed to mirror the expected functions of most notable network sites with user profiles, photos, friends and comments. The new angle would be MOA's focus on location specific information and user generated content reviewing and documenting "adventures" to various campgrounds, trails, waterways and more.
Purpose:
The brain child of an avid adventure seeker, MOA's purpose is to provide location specific information, adventure opinion & reviews to those looking to maximize their time in the great outdoors.
Solution:
Soulfire was approached by MOA's founder & owner, Wayne Scholl, as he was in search of a company that could build out his vision of an online source for location specific information and recommendations. His goal was to find a company with the right mix of experience, talent and interest in outdoor activities. SFIMG fit all of those qualities.
Upon initial agreement, SFIMG drew up the plans of attack for the site structure and function. Dedicated over a month and a half to planning, structure and strategy alone, SFIMG was able to provide various solutions to the MOA team, recommending the best options for the site. Taking into account the notable social networks like MySpace.com and Facebook.com and how they function for users, SFIMG's goal was to take the best parts of those sites and create a simple to use, but elegant designed site.
Another notable component of research was the competition. Currently, when "Outdoors Social Network" is searched for in Google or Yahoo engines, there are more than a few websites dedicated to activities in the outdoors. These sites were also reviewed and joined to see what they offered and how MOA would differ from them. SFIMG concluded that MOA would be the exclusive outdoors site to provide a platform where the focus is on locations and adventure experiences, helping to disseminate important information for vacation goers and travelers.
During the 3 month development period, SFIMG built a secure database platform within the L.A.M.P. environment while maintaining scale and future additions in mind. This initial phase of the website build would provide an ample source of user centered experience and easy-to-use site functionality that could act as a precursor to larger site additions and uses.
MyOutdoorAdventure.com was successfully launched on July 15, 2008. Having completed a 3 week "soft launch" period, the website was launched with excitement by all teams involved. Wayne and the MOA staff were highly pleased with the end result and have only the highest praises on the look, feel and function of the site. Currently, MOA is preparing for several tours on trails and camping areas looking to promote the website to other adventurers. The immediate goal is to sign-up 500 users within the first 6 months of existence and have a range of locations throughout the United States and North America.
Stay tuned for more from MOA as the website is in its infantile stages and looking to do bigger and better things soon!
