Capstone Proposal

A collaborative, online music experience through Facebook Connect

Proposal by: Joe Roth and Alex Ehrnschwender

UVA Systems Engineering 2010

9/3/09

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* Working title

Idea Background

• Facebook is currently the largest online social networking site, with over 250 million active users

• Facebook recently released the Facebook Connect API, allowing web developers to utilize user identities, friends, distribution, and integration

Idea Background (cont.)

• Currently, there are many collaborative music environments available to users

• Some environments are software-based and downloadable

• Others are web-based and use uploading and streaming technology

Opportunity

Currently, there is no web application that fuses a collaborative music program with Facebook, the world’s leading social networking website

Goals

Overall Goal: To implement a web application which draws on user accounts from Facebook, allows music publication from users, and supports cross-user listening and other collaborative activities.

Specific Goals:

• e-Commerce planning and projection

• Business plan development

• Full code implementation of application

• Extensive User Acceptance testing

• Release of application by middle of Spring Semester

Corporate Sponsor:

Faculty Sponsor: Alf WeaverProfessor of Electronic Commerce TechnologiesDepartment of Computer Scienceacw@Virginia.EDU

Sponsor Information

Current System Implementation

• The application currently plays music allowing play, pause, next, and fast forward features.

• Playlist creation supported

• The Facebook Connect feature is currently available in this environment and successfully links the two applications.

Currently, Joe has developed a significant portion of the code in Adobe Flex and implemented on a test web environment:

Current Implementation: Home Screen

Current Implementation: Login Screen

Current Implementation: Facebook Connect

Left to Complete Through Capstone

By accepting this project as a capstone, you would let us apply extensive Systems Engineering methodology. More specifically:

CS101, CS201, SYS202

Extensive coding and integration of a Rich Internet Application to a database and the Web

SYS323

User testing and application of Human-Interface principles

SYS257

Distributed Computer Architecture Modeling, CBMG, Cost projection, etc.

SYS334, APMA312, SYS421

Statistical analysis of user behavior after implementation

Q & A

Q: How much of my time would you require for advising this project?A: Not much at all. We would take you out to lunch bi-monthly for our meetings to discuss progress.

Q: Aren’t you two already in capstone groups?A: We are both a part of large teams and do not see ourselves as integral assets to our current teams. We have also not invested enough time or effort for a switch to be a problem.

Q: Capstone projects require a client, who is yours?A: This would mainly be an entrepreneurial venture with users being clients. This would give us an unparalleled opportunity to set our own goals, develop leadership skills, and actually own a project.

Q: How would you be graded on this capstone?A: There are many possibilities for grading based on specific goal deliverables, user frequency after implementation, etc. If accepted as a capstone, we will propose a potential grading rubric within a week.

Further Questions?

Thanks for your time and consideration!