Navigation on many websites is difficult at best. Just to do simple things requires that you switch pages many times. Then you need to go back to where you left off and you end up in never never land. When I wrote Swappernet, I was guilty of doing this myself.

 

Example:

 

Go to Who's On-line - Bring up a profile - send a message to the user - sent to mailbox

From the mailbox the user needed to go back to Who's On to continue the search.

 

All of this to send a simple message to a user. Seems a bit silly right?

Most swinger websites work this way or something similar to it for sure.

 

What if there was a better way to navigate a Swinger website.

Lets think outside the box for a minute.

How about where ever you are in the website you can do something

and then be brought right back to where you started. That is a good start right?

Take it a step further. Why not stay right where you are and perform the task.

 

Now we are talking right? Ajax is a buzz word many developers throw around to describe a process of the web page doing calls in the background to a server and then updating only the part of the screen that actually requires updating.

 

Well many websites have been doing this for years, but all of them seemed to have missed the real reason for using it in the first place. It is meant to make the users experience easier. Well, Ajax has come a long way in recent years. It has found it's way into many websites doing some cool things.

 

How could this technology help a website for swingers?

 

Lets have a look at the same scenario described about.

 

User loads the Who's On-line Page. They click on a profile to view it and a window pops up right over the current page. When the window is closed you are right back where you started. Now the user click a send message link and another window pops up and they write the message and click send and then the window goes away and they are right back where they started.

 

Navigation is all done in fact there is no need to even worry about it at all. It has become irrelevant.

That is one example of improving a swingers website. How about a few more.

 

You login to the website and on most swinger websites you are directed to some kind of home page with news

and other items of interest. Seems a bit silly to waste this home page with just news right? Why not make it really useful. How about some kind of portal page. Meaning a page with custom content that you can choose from that is updated in real time. Complete with movable and collapsible snap ins. One that will stay around even when you logout and log back in.

 

What could some of these snap ins be?

 

How about these just to name a few.

 

Your friends or contacts.

Last 10 mail messages you received

Latest forum postings

Your groups

Your party calendar

Your stats

News and Events

Recent Blogs

Recent profiles you have viewed

 

and many many more.

 

From these items, you can select- which ones you want and how they are arranged on the screen. As a matter of fact, these will not only display data but they are also active. Meaning you can actually use them to do things. Lets take the last 10 mail messages for an example. It will show a listing of the mail messages and you can view, reply, delete, or move any message displayed.

 

Now what you have is a single page designed the way you want and one that can do most of the common tasks on the website. Sound good so far?

 

Well there have been a whole lot of "IF's" and "What IF's" here but this new website will have all of these things and many more. 

 

With 138 days remaining we are getting very close to completing the website. We wish to thank those people that have helped us out to date with ideas and the last round of beta testing.

 

We will be doing another round of beta testing before we roll out and we will need some more people to help out.

 

If you are interested in helping out please give me a call at 813-641-2160

 

Anyone that helps will be given a lifetime membership to the new website and will be listed in the founding members page for all time. They will also have some special privileges on the website to view some stats only available to myself. They will also get the highest payouts for our affiliate program.

 

 - Paul