Moments Online Community

Creating a highly valued nature site

Background

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has been working hard to raise its profile and relevance to a wider section of the public.

The prime reason for this is the RSPB's ambition to extend its support and therefore the society's ability to conserve wildlife and their habitats.

Creating an online community was identified as an ideal way to further this aim, so long as the site could deliver on several critical points:

  • A place for like-minded users with a love of nature to share their enthusiasm, have fun, communicate, and feel part of something good that's well worth visiting again and again
  • Delver genuine value to the RSPB
  • A technology platform with the functionality to allow users to share experiences, discuss nature, upload photos and post updates
  • Be fully compatible with existing RSPB IT infrastructure
  • Offer scalability
  • Able to integrate seamlessly with the existing CMS
  • Be enhancement-ready and supportive of long term community goals

Solution

As with all Building Blocks projects, from the beginning there was very close collaboration between the Building Blocks team and the people at RSPB. This is a crucial factor in generating the solution that delivers the most value, in the most efficient way possible:

  • Website allows users to upload photos and captions, to share their experience - or 'moments' - in nature with others
  • Telligent Community Server 2008 as core engine. Existing main website utilises an older version of Community Server
  • Built as a standalone microsite, so not limited by Telligent Community Server's out-of-the-box features
  • Community Server used as the data repository, utilising REST API written in .NET to integrate Moments with main RSPB site
  • Single Sign On allows users to access main RSPB site through Moments, and vice-versa, via only one log-on
  • Visitors register to upload their 'moments' and tag them with keywords, tag cloud allows other users to search content easily
  • Library area for memories and photos, 'favourites' feature allows users to book mark content

Technologies Used