IntroductionOne part of the project of mobile applications for radio stations was to design and develop a mobile voting engine capable to handle votes coming from mobile devices. This solution can be re-used in much wider context and generally can be used as a multi-purpose voting engine. How It Works
The system consists of three main parts:
- Mobile devices with front-end mobile applications
- Real-time processing engine
- Reporting engine
Users, while doing their stuff in mobile front-ends can vote. In case of radio stations, users are allowed to vote on the particular song on air. But as mentioned above, this scenario can be extended to any other voting.
The whole system was designed from the ground to be able to process multitudes of votes from mobile devices across the world. The real-time processing engine is fully built in the cloud in order to leverage the power of clouds - the scalability. So we can easily process hundreds of votes per second.
Figure 1 - High Level Architecture
Finally, collected data has no meaning without the right interpretation and visualization for human beings. Reporting module is capable to deliver on-demand and custom reports for end-users and should be considered as a tool for supporting the decision making process.
When mobile voting feature is enabled in applications, real-time processing module records all votes and can provide three types of reports:- Monthly reports - static monthly reports
- Real-time reports - real-time and custom reports
- Geolocation reports - real-time geolocation reports
Monthly Reports
Monthly reports are generated once a month for the preceding month.
A monthly report contains:
- list of items for which users voted
- total sum of votes for each item
- number of votes for each item distributed across mobile devices
Real-time Reports
Real-time reports can provide immediate results collected in real-time processing module as well as can provide custom reports.
For example, in case of radio stations, this predefined real-time report called 'OnAir' shows following statistics for the current song on air:
- a column chart displaying votes distribution across mobile applications
- a pie chart showing number of likes and dislikes received for the current song
- a pie chart depicting actual distribution across devices
This information can be accessed by moderators in radios who can interact with listeners in very innovative ways. Check the Usage Scenarios section.
Figure 2 - Predefined real-time report for song on air
Real-time reports contains two predefined reports such as:
- performance of a given song over a period of time - check the Usage Scenarios section for some ideas how it could be used
- top N most liked / disliked songs played in radio over a period of time
List of reports and visualizations can be easily extended with customized reports. For example, if you need statistics only for every Monday from 08:00 to 10:00 AM and compare them in a chart, this is an ideal candidate for simple custom report.
Geolocation Reports
Another important feature we deliver is the notion, where your audience is and from where is voting. We know the approximate location of each mobile device and we can process and visualize this information in a meaningful way.
The level of details we can provide highly depends on map sources for your country. In most cases, we can identify:
- country
- county
- state
- administrative region
- city
- part of the city
Country Level Distribution Map
Usage Scenarios
Imagine, that you would give to your listeners a simple yet powerful tool with witch they can express their opinion on the music you play. It is just a matter of one click.
With this simple idea, you can extend and experiment with your audience in new and innovative ways.
Mobile Song Performance Testing
With INNOVA OnAir, you can easily test how new songs and singles performs in your radio and how listeners react to them. Choose the right one as a single and identify those ones, which should be released on a CD compilation. Or identify the times, when the song performs best.
Mobile TOP Charts
Interact with your audience and let them play. People love playing with things. And while they listen to you radio, they can vote for songs and you can count all votes from mobile devices and make let's say 'Mobile Top Weekly' chart. Let them easily choose what they want to listen to. |
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