My Flex Based Celeb Aggregator: MediaDinosaur – is Online.
In 2002 I launched a community generated content site and groupblog called MediaDinosaur. Users could rate and vote on the content, submit top ten lists, bash celebs and media sites. It was great fun. After I took a full time job, the site languished… I recently resurrected the domain name and am beginning the reinvention of the site. Here is version 1 of that reinvention.
I have built a Flex based RSS reader that grabs feeds from the biggest gossip sites on the web (and if you have others you know about but I missed, please do tell!) and allows you to read the feeds and visit the sites. I plan on adding trend charting to track the overall celeb memes in paparazzi (creating hall of fames/shames, etc.), and eventually adding other categories, like entertainment reviews, gaming reviews, special topics like new media formats, DRM, etc. I don’t actually like celeb worship, but there just seems to be so much material out there to pick from and it’s just too hard to resist. On top of that, my wife just so happens to be a perfect beta tester for this type of content. 
All that said, if you are interested in checking out what I have up there now, go check it out.
A few things I am concerned about with it being built in Flex…
- Flash 9 penetration – I am limiting my audience by requiring Flash 9.
- Search Engine Visibility – I’m using SWFObject for the Placement code, so I think I might build a RSS parser for the PHP powering the page to put some real content on the page, as well as provide at least a little bit of info to our non flash visitors.
- Download time - Currently the main.swf file is 290KB. Man are components heavy… any optimization tips out there?
If this project sounds interesting to you and you like to parse regular expressions (Hey – Who doesn’t?) contact me and we can collaborate on it. I have no experience with Flex Charting, but am looking to learn.
Posted on April 3, 2007