7BillionIdeas.com is a unique take on social media - a place to capture that brainwave you have in the pub or whilst waiting for a train and immediately get feedback online in the form of likes and dislikes. Selesti developed the website which also give stats about the gender, profession and location of who your ideas are popular with. Users can tag their idea from a pool of categories including technology and sport, and these can be filtered in their activity feed, as well as the searching and personal profile pages which are synonymous with social media.

After approaching Selesti with their original design concept, we wireframed and helped visualise the right functionality to ensure users would be enthused and engaged the moment they arrived at the site. Investment was raised by 7BillionIdeas off the back of the conceptual design Selesti consulted on and tweaked, funding the initial phase 1 project, completed to a tight timescale in line with the investors’ parameters for delivery.

Additional investment was raised through Crowd Funding website www.crowdcube.com to progress into phase 2. The 7Billionideas team smashed all records and achieved a first by gaining full investment within 3 days!

Elements like your ‘at a glance stats’ and the ‘real time ideas counter’ all help give the impression of immediate involvement and your ideas are immediately seen by all members as soon as they’re added, rather than having to establish followers or friends. These features are being added in phase 2 (including a further Selesti facelift and launching early September), however in the early stages it was felt important that by default everything is shared community-wide. Even when you choose to follow friends’ ideas feeds on the new version, this will be a filter, the default timeline will be All users All ideas.

Other elements to add colour to the chronological ideas feed inlude Top 10 and worst 10 ideas widgets on the homepage helping to connote a site which had high user levels from the earliest stage. We implemented user friendly tech such as ajax for continuous ideal feed scrolling, so that user experience was as slick as the social networks they will have likely been referred from.

Topping the phenomenal success of the Crowd Funding record, 7Billionideas.com is also a finalist at the 2012 DADI Awards in the Travel/Leisure/Sports Website category up against the likes of Amir Khan and Auto Trader digital campaigns.

Phase 2, which is nearing delivery, includes launch of an iPhone app which Selesti have developed to act as an accompaniment to the website, aiding user loyalty & overall experience.

Selesti’s digital strategy expertise has been called upon to help 7BillionIdeas.com monetise and take advantage of their initial traffic levels and media coverage.

After considering and suggesting several methods to move their fledgling company forward, Phase 2 sees the establishing of corporate user types, paving the way for sponsored ideas and placements around the site. Introducing to users heavily controlled and limited company activity on the website initially, will smooth the transition from a site offering fun idea sharing tools to an efficient and self-sufficient social media platform. The stats which are collected to enable 7BillionIdeas to provide a richer user experience to their members, will become a valuable asset in offering businesses the opportunity to seamlessly join the conversation, delivering their message to that growing community.

When you add the new interface design to the introduction of so many new features,

September 2012 is set to be an exciting time for 7Billionideas.com!