Aside from the SSL certificate, I have done a major change to the style of the site and have received great feedback–the other two styles blew compared to this one.  Thanks to my Graphic Design/Video friend, Matt, who has offered his expertise on the matter.

Also, I’ve started implementing the networking portion of the site and I will probably do some more work with that this weekend to get the basics down.  It’s not unlike many of the other networking sites except that it will have a professional flare to it.  I understand the need to keep people interested in the site, which is why I am currently working on the ability to build a private lead.  The scenario goes like this:

• A potential client navigates to a photographer’s website–not directly associated with my site.
• The client wants to get in touch with the photographer, but maybe the photographer doesn’t encrypt this personal data, or maybe the photographer only has an email address listed.
• Well, I’m proposing that the photographer put a direct link to my site, and their networking profile, where the client can register, using an encrypted site, submit the information for the project and then ONLY that photographer can see that lead, at no charge.  If the photographer feels that she/he doesn’t want the lead, or maybe she/he isn’t available, then the photographer can put the lead into the pool to have other photographers purchase the lead, and provide the client with the services they need.
• This helps the photographer in many ways… it lets my site handle the hard work in terms of gathering the proper information on a secure site; it builds the credibility of that photographer because even though the client wasn’t able to hire her/him, he was able to connect the client with a photographer who could do the job; it allows easy management of the photographer’s projects and, above all, it also helps the photography community.  It’s a great thing.

Another thing that I will add towards the end, which I already have outlined, is the “Featured Photographer” section… this section is on the very front page of the website and is the first thing that anybody will see when they navigate to the main page… it’s purpose is to promote photographers and the fine work they do… in the begining of the site I won’t be charging for this, pictures will be posted based on merit alone; however, this does have viable potential once the site is popular… with the domain tools that I have, I can tell where a visitor is located in the world and can customize that featured section to that area of the world, which, when combined with the private lead service mentioned in the last paragraph, would offer a great opportunity for photographers.

Other than all of that, there are a few bugs that I’ll be working out here and there… I also need to add some more data to the various options used in the project survey… the data I have there now was put there as test data and doesn’t fully cater to a real-world situation.

I’m excited!  This is going to be a great thing for photographers and the photography market.

One huge addition we made is the ability to suggest cities and states, or even zip codes, when the client is entering the location of their project.  The old way was to simply have the client enter the zip code and then an AJAX call would determine if the zip was correct.  While this was helpful, it was an extra step that didn’t need to be there… why not allow suggestions to be made while the person is entering their text?

Another large addition, which is in the works and may not be fully function by the time the site launches, is the update of the zip code database… this database now includes census information, city aliases, and even information on financials for businesses in the area.  While I won’t go in to how this will affect the backend processing of the script, I will say that I think this feature alone will be extremely helpful to the photographers as they attempt to create their estimates.

Other than that, there are relatively smaller changes and additions being made as the site develops… we continue to remain focused on the core function of the site, and its purpose, so as to work towards the launch of the web site.  Motion in progress, progress in motion.

Yes, I said it.  October or November the site will likely be done if we continue to make the leaps we realized today.   This is exciting and I can’t wait until that fine launch day.

We have a nice marketing plan in the works as well… we’ve created a temporary identity which I think will work nicely with our business model, but these things can always change.

Stay tuned for more exciting news in the near future.

So, as the launch date approaches I’ve had the userbility folks take a look at both the front-end and back-end of the site to see how we can improve efficientcy… for the sake of simplicity, I initially kept all of the database tables inside one database, but since we are now using a class to access the database we now just create objects of the database class and then set the connection properties so that we can compartmentalize the information into a better organized, and efficient operation.  I tell ya… the speed of the script increased dramatically just from that one change.  I think this will also allow for a much easier integration of our analytics script.

In other news… Chris Kirkpatrick [Nigels 11, N'Sync] had yet another awesome party at his house over Labor Day so more networking took place.  What a guy… I tell ya.  Finally got a picture with him, but I’ll refrain from posting it here as I’d like for this blog to be somewhat professional in nature. lol

So when is the launch date?  Everybody’s asking this… I can’t say right now… it’s not that it’s some secret, it’s just that we still have a lot of stuff to do, along with plenty of testing, so I’d like to not speculate on a launch date as of yet.