Open discussion on new classifieds upgrade

[dk]

I've been thinking a lot, and it's finally about time for me to recode the classifieds. I'll be addressing a few of the bugs that have been brought to my attention over the years and will try to make a few improvements over the way things are currently being handled.

The design will be changing from what it is now to fit the appearance of the front page at www.japanupdate.com. I don't have any say in this matter, and I really think it's a good idea to keep the general look and feel of the website uniform across the board.

Aside from that, I'm all ears. Do any of you have any suggestions for improving the classifieds beyond what they are right now?

One thing I'll be looking into is automatic validation of payment ads upon receipt. What this means is, if you place an ad and pay for it online, it should be validated automatically by the system upon verification. It should be hands off for me. This means that no matter what time of day you place and pay for your ad, it will self-validate without any intervention from me whatsoever. Ad cancellations for paid ads will, however, still go through me.

I'm also aiming to target some of the mainland bases with the new release of the classifieds as well. I'm not sure how I'm going to do this yet, but I'm definitely putting some thought into it. If you have any ideas, feel free to reply here.

This is an open discussion. I will read and serioiusly consider every idea that's posted here. Please keep it limited on how we can improve the classifieds, not the website as a whole. I'll most likely hold an open discussion on that at a later date.

Thanks in advance for all of your input.

[dk]

I'll use this post as a placeholder for idea's we'll be implementing during our upgrade. Here are the ideas so far. Feel free to post your own and if we decide to use them we'll add them to the list.

1. Automatic credit card validation - If an ad successfully goes through, it will AUTOMATICALLY be validated by the system minutes after the ad is posted. No more waiting for the webmaster to validate paid ads.
2. Category searches will now display 25 ads per page - 10 ads per page just isn't enough. After we enhance our myJU pages (Near Future Project) we'll build in capabilities to allow you all to set your own defaults as to how many ads to show per page.
3. Bug fix for JPEG/GIF uploads for all browsers - We seem to have problems with uploads from most browsers aside from Internet Explorer.
4. RSS feeds for every classifieds category - We already have this at http://www.japanupdate.com/?p=rss but it's kind of hidden and not nearly documented well enough.
5. Regional support - Allow ad placement and search capabilities for visitors outside of Okinawa.
6. Announcements CMS - Right now we just sort of plop any announcements on the front page of our classifieds. We're going to create a content management system for announcements, rules, faqs, how-to manuals, and any other classifieds documentation we might need.
7. User ad editing/removal (Near Future Project) - You will be able to edit your own gold and elite ads through the myJU pages.
8. Ability to view newly validated ads - Users will be able to view ads that have been added in the past 24 hours from all categories and post types. (Thank you Kathy )
9. Base Detection - Text parsing to determine which base an ad seller is located on based on phone number submitted. (Thank you Sandra )

Feel free to post your own ideas for improvement or other features you'd like to see added. Our main interests in this upgrade are definitely #1 and #5 for now, but all features will be implemented. We'd LOVE to enable visitors from mainland Japan to use our classifieds. The only puzzle is how to make this a possibility without crowding the pages with too many sub-pages.

At this time, the credit card provider we are using does not have the capabilities for you users to be able to stop your own billing AND remove your own gold/elite ads. Ad removal for gold and elite ads will still have to go through our webmaster until we get our new credit card solution in place--which is going to be quite a while from now. We have the solution available, but a few technical issues are currently in the way of making this happen at this time. We are putting much consideration into giving you users absolute control over your own ads.

[DoctorP]

Could I suggest that you stop allowing people to post paid ads in the FREE section? I understand that they offer a free service, but to me something just seems wrong about this practice. They should place their ads under the appropriate heading...it used to never happen, now the 1st 8-10 ads are all for services.

Just a thought!

[dk]

I'll consider it. I can see how that'd be annoying.

They do place their ads in the appropriate category. It's going to be hard to get my boss to go along with your idea for the simple fact that they're paying for an Autos ad AND a Free Stuff ad. But yeah, I can see it being a good idea to keep that section limited to STUFF not SERVICES.

[DoctorP]

I understand about your boss...but we'll see how it works out.

[dk]

Thanks for the idea though. I'll have to think of some solution to keep everybody happy. If I can move those ads out of free stuff and put them somewhere else I might be able to make it work.

[DoctorP]

Seems to me that they belong in the Services section and the AUTO's section...maybe create a "Free Services" section?

[dk]

Originally Posted by DoctorP

Seems to me that they belong in the Services section and the AUTO's section...maybe create a "Free Services" section?

That'd make sense. That'd be a good spot to put those partylite party ads at too, since they ARE free to host.

Yeah, I should probably breakdown the ad categories while I'm doing some brainstorming. Might be a good idea to get rid of a few and add a few new ones.

[larey_dunn]

I would like to see a priority for long time customers in the Business ad category. I have been paying for my elite ad since Jan 07 and keep getting bumped off the first page, so I have to email DK to have it updated when nothing changes. Or ad a new category for Outdoor Entertainment, something where all the bouncer/slide/inflatable businesses can place their ad.

I also talked to you before about lowering the price if one individual is carring more then one elite ad. Make the price like $20 even per week, or even a lower monthly charge. I am currently looking at running more than one ad, but at $27 per week I don't know if it would be worth it.

Thanks
Larey Dunn

[dk]

Thanks Larey. Your first idea seems like a good idea, but the only problem is for it to work I'm going to have to make the database do a default ascending sort by date. I can have this as an extra search, but anytime an ad is updated, it'll move to the BOTTOM of the list instead of the top. If poeple have no problem with that, it's not a big deal with me. I need to think about this one.

For your second question, the credit card system we are using right now just isn't flexible enough for this. I have another credit card system in mind, but in order to make it work, we're going to need our own dedicated server and to start storing credit card information in our databases--which means we're going to have to start encrypting data and beefing up our security. For this to happen, we'll have to spend a ton of time and money and the boss is pretty fond of 2checkout, so I really just don't see it happening.

But I may create a new type of ad that shows on every search page. It'll have to come at a cost that not everyone places one. That'd be like having a bunch of ads and paying less money. You could have that one ad and it's show on all the pages.

Thank you for your comments. I really appreciate it.