I am looking at the Virtual Gift Addon. Nice work.
But I have some suggestions.
1) in the audio, allow embedding Soundcloud audio. MooSocial already has addon integrating nicely with Soundcloud. This will go a very long way and it should not entail building something ground up.
2) in the video, allow YouTube and Vimeo videos. Same reason as above. MooSocial already has such video capabilities.
These should not be monumental tasks for MooSocial team but they will go a long way to make a good product (like Virtual Gift) great.
The next step, my suggestion is MooSocial looking into integrating virtual gifts with two areas:
1) Coupons. MooSocial already has coupon implemented in 3.0. Nice step forward. How about a coupon feature like this.
For everyone who sets up a Business Directory or Social Store, allow them to generate their own coupons. This will achieve 2 goals:
- It sets MooSocial community apart from any Facebook pages or stores.
- Coupon feature is potentially a great revenue source. Many small niche stores do not have the wherewithal to set up a coupon enabled web site. But if their business grows, let the community owner charge them a small fee is something they will be happy to consider.
Niche community owners could provide this feature as value added service to attract local small businesses.
This is a user case for this integration. Imagine a local group leader using the site able to send coupons to groups or members he / she is associated with. Or a Business Directory owner able to distribute coupons among followers.
Borrow or steal designs from Facebook as much as possible. I wonder if where Facebook places nice animated GIF could be an interesting candidate for Virtual Gift in the future MooChat design.
Imaging passing out coupons like that by a local businessman.
2) Consider letting the users on the site create their own greeting cards. Let them add their own text, choose font and add a nice background image. Allow them to send it as virtual gifts to each other.
In our research, we found that Facebook is really slick. Its user experience fabulous. There is one catch. Local businesses are so removed from Facebook, their marketing dollars are getting very mediocre returns on Facebook.
You see, in US, teaching people how to use their Facebook ad is becoming a multi-billion dollar business. This is telling us that Facebook ad is getting so complicated to manage that local businesses are really struggling to get what they want out of their spending.
This is potentially a huge opportunity for niche communities. Local business will not be loyal to Facebook if they find better alternatives. And we can try to become one.
If MooSocial enables small business users to do more things to benefit their business, getting more out of their marketing dollars, it is hitting Facebook where there is truly an opening.
When local small biz came, the content cost for all community owners will drop. MooSocial and its clients will win.