SW 1.4: Large Scale Enhancements to Merchant Profiles

Improvements to Merchant Profiles is the single most important aspect of Social Wave's 1.4 release. Merchant Profiles have gotten much easier to use as of the 1.3 release, but many people are still having difficulty setting up their merchant profiles correctly. Particular difficulty has been noted with control of profile layouts and use of the three supplemental pages (Gallery, Reviews, Custom Page).

We've noticed a trend of search engines having a field day hitting up some merchant profiles and need to make some adjustments to leverage this benefit even more. A few merchant profiles are averaging over 100 views per month and one merchant received almost 100 click through's to his main website from Social Wave visitors. Merchant Profiles are really working for some people. We're trying to figure out how to make it work just as well for everyone.

Proposed Changes:

• Set-up Wizard Interface Enhancements: Although the set-up wizard was a great improvement over the ìadd one page at a timeî approach when Merchant Profiles were originally released, it remained mostly a textual based process in which users were asked a lot of questions without understanding how their answers would make their profile better. The set-up wizard will be jazzed up to be more visually intuitive. Probability: 90%
  
• Types of Merchant Profiles: A new feature of the improved set-up wizard will be different types of Merchant Profiles that users will be able to select when first launching the set-up wizard. For example, types of profiles may include prearranged set-ups for restaurants, retail stores, or artists. Merchant Profile types will greatly facilitate the first time set-up job. Probability: 90%
  
• Merchant Coupon Generator: This was originally planned for the previous release, but was delayed due to time constraints. Merchants will be able to create coupons easily to offer to Social Wave members to stimulate more interest among local residents to come to their establishments. Probability: 90%
  
• Social Wave Banner Ads for Merchant Profiles: When paid advertisers for Social Wave banner ads are running low, Merchant Profile banners linked to Merchant Profiles will be used as free ads. Social Wave merchants will also have the option of purchasing blocks of reasonably priced banner ad views for guaranteed exposure. Probability: 90%
  
• Search Engine Optimization: A few new fields will be added for user input of information to help guide search engine traffic. Probability: 90%
  
• Merchant stats counter: Currently the only stat available for merchants is number of page views. After the 1.4 release, merchants will be able to see other stats like number of click throughs their merchant profile has generated to their main site (if they have one). They will also have their page views broken down by page and if the visitor was a Social Wave member or a guest visitor. If all goes well, we will break number of hits down by day to make Merchant Profiles of more use in measuring the effect of promotions. Probability: 75%
  
• Improved Custom page Editor: The software that runs the custom page editor has actually already been upgraded to fix some bugs and run a lot faster than before. Further enhancements will add stock images for use in custom pages and page templates to give merchants a head start in creating custom pages. Probability: 75%
  
• Merchant Groups: Merchants belonging to a shopping district or an association will be able to create a ìWeb Ringî with their peer merchants. Probability: 50%
  
• Multiple Favorite Merchant Lists: Users can currently only create one list of their favorite merchants. Functionality to create more than one list may be added as early as the 1.4 release. Probability: 25%

These are development notes for the upcoming Social Wave 1.4 release planned to go out in April near our 1 year anniversary date. All are welcome to comment and make suggestions.