Boston Blog and Event Site

**Site Description** The main purpose of this website will be to make articles produced by several, geographically separated writers available to a 21+ audience in the Greater Boston, MA area. The 4 main areas of the site are: Blog, Events Calendar, User Profiles, and Email Newsletter. ## Deliverables **_BLOG_** **Blog Articles** Blog articles will be posted on a daily basis by 5 writers in various locations throughout the United States. Each writer will be able to post their own articles in real time without requiring web developer or systems administrator assistance or knowledge of HTML/CSS/etc. Blog articles will display on the home page having the most recent article at the top and oldest at the bottom. Each article will appear in a template based format having a Title, Writer Name, Article Body, and optional Image or Embedded Video. **Blog Comments** Blog articles will allow logged in users to post comments in response to the article and to comments left by other users. Comments will accept free form text, hyperlinks, images, and embedded video. **Polls & Questions** Site Administrators will be able to create polls and questions for users within the Blog. Site Administrators will create a poll question and select either a free form text or multiple choice response. Site Administrators will define the acceptable multiple choice responses. Users answering a multiple choice question will immediately see the results of the entire poll. Users will be limited to one answer per session, requiring a refresh of the page and/or a closing of the browser to resubmit. **Blog Archive** Blog Articles older than a user defined number of days will be automatically archived and accessible on an internal page. Archived articles will be automatically placed in a “Daily Archives?? section. Archived articles will also be tagged for inclusion in a second “Keepers?? category. Archived Articles will be maintained indefinitely. Site Administrators will have the ability to manually delete archived articles. **Writer Bios** Writer Bios will be available on an internal page accessible by clicking on the hyperlinked writer name for each article and/or directly from a “Writer Bios?? menu option. Writer Bios will include a free format description for the writer to create and maintain. **_EVENTS_** **Events Calendar** An Events Calendar will be available from the Home Page showing the current months planned events by default. Users will be able to navigate to past as well as upcoming events within the calendar. Events will only be created by Administrators. **Event Creation** Administrators will create a new Event by designating a Date, Event Name, Schedule, Event Description, Location, and Images. New Events will automatically appear on the designated date within the Events Calendar. Creation of a New Event will also generate an Event Details Page having the Date, Event Name, Schedule, Event Description, Location, and Images entered by the Adminstrator. **Event Registration** Users will register and pay for events via the web site. They will see confirmation of the transaction having completed successfully as well as receive an automated email to the user’s email address with all confirmation details. A user will be required to establish a username and password to complete their registration and all data entered during the registration process will be captured as the start of the user profile. **Upcoming Events** Users will be able to click on an upcoming Event Name to launch an internal Event Details page having an Event Name, Schedule, Event Description, and Images. All Event Details will be created and maintained by Administrators. **Past Events** As soon as an Event has completed, a Photo Gallery, Video Gallery, and Event Writeup will be made available. Event Attendees will be able to post photos or link to embedded videos. **Photo Gallery** A Photo Gallery will be available directly from the Home Page and display photos by event. Users will click on the event and see a Photo Viewer having a “Back?? and “Next?? button to navigate through the photos. Photos will not be displayed as thumbnails all at once for. Users will be able to post photos to any of the events and delete their own photos. Administrators will be able to post photos to any event and delete photos posted by any user. **Video Gallery** Administrators will be able to post videos to the site server and link to the video. A preview of the first frame of the video should be viewable for all videos. Videos posted by users will be available in a Video Gallery as embedded videos linking to YouTube or other video hosting services. **_USER PROFILES_** **User Profiles** Users will create and maintain a username and password secured profile. Profile information will include Street Address, City, State, Zip, Email, First Name, Last Name, Birthday, Sex, Newsletter Signup/Decline, etc. User profiles will contain event attendance information (Events Attended, Events Missed, etc). A User Profile will be required to post Blog Article comments. User Profile information will be maintained in a database. **_EMAIL NEWSLETTER_** **Newsletter Administration** A biweekly/monthly newsletter will be sent from the website to all Users having provided an email address and opted in to receive the newsletter. Users will be able to unsubscribe from the newsletter by clicking on a site generated link within the newsletter that will update their profile immediately to no longer receive the newsletter. **_INTEGRATION_** **PayPal Website Payments Standard** * All payment transactions will be conducted through PayPal **Google Analytics** * Site traffic will be monitored via Google Analytics **Database** * All User Profile information will be stored in a database **Social Bookmarking** * Blog Articles will provide links at the bottom of each article to post to Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon, etc. **RSS Feeds** * All Blog Articles should be available via RSS. ## Platform 3.0+ versions of Internet Explorer and Netscape Database compatible w/Microsoft Excel