Exploring AI and Internet Technologies
This is another online photo contest that we’ve just fielded using the Votridea contest platform, created by my team at Metrostar. This is the software platform for which I’m the technical architect and development team lead.
This contest platform was developed as a generalization of the ExchangesConnect video contest platform that we did last year for the Department of State.
Votridea is an easy-to-use online Contest Platform that fosters innovation by building communities around ideas and challenges. Votridea is an all-in-one, customizable suite of contest and community management tools that makes the complex process of building online multimedia contests simple. It’s also the project that I’ve been working on for many months now, so I’m very pleased that we’ve just launched this dynamic product.
Votridea is an online product created and backed by MetroStar Systems, a fast-growing consulting company located in Northern Virginia. MetroStar Systems has been rated one of the nation’s fastest growing companies by Inc Magazine.
Votridea has its genesis in an earlier project. In 2008, MetroStar was approached by the Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs to implement and manage an online video contest for an international audience. The purpose of the contest was to promote the bureau’s ExchangesConnect social network, an online community that promotes cross-cultural understanding around the world.
MetroStar has now run the bureau’s contest for two consecutive years. During this time, we built a robust community engagement platform that successfully handled all the issues involved in running an international contest that featured users in more than 50 countries worldwide. Thanks to the contest platform, ExchangesConnect has seen unparalleled membership growth which has helped them reach an ever-wider audience with their message of understanding.
Votridea is the evolution of that robust, proven platform. It’s been generalized so we can easily skin the platform for each individual contest. It’s also been productized so that we can easily tailor features to meet the needs of new clients. Along the way, we’ve also added support for photo contests, multiple video hosting options, improved analytics for tracking contest performance, etc.
Best of all, it’s a cloud-based solution, which means that we can scale to meet the demands of any online contest, no matter how big the audience. Find out more about Votridea now.
Yes, for you technophiles, the platform uses Ruby on Rails, Amazon EC2 for storage and is hosted with EngineYard (one of the top cloud-based hosting solutions for Ruby/Rails applications).
The ExchangesConnect Online Video Contest site launched on November 17, 2009. Here’s a screenshot of the website, which looks pretty cool now that the community has uploaded a bunch of videos.
The purpose of the contest is to help drive up the membership for the Department of State’s ExchangesConnect social network, which is focused on promoting cross-cultural understanding around the world. The social network and the contest have been done for the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
This is a project I’ve worked on with fellow Rubyists David McVicar and Kelly Gifford, so we’re all pretty pleased. Four contest winners will receive an all-expense-paid, two-week-long foreign exchange program compliments of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State.
Check out the contest now! There’s plenty of room for more participants.
Since mid-August, I’ve been working as part of a team to create an online video contest for the Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. They operate an online social network called ExchangesConnect that promotes cross-cultural understanding across the world. This is the second year that my company, MetroStar Systems, has implemented and managed an online contest for this client.
