The Visual Matching Engine
Integrated Components for any Application, Website or Portal
If your needs don’t require a standalone product then our Visual Matching Engine™ solution gives you an easy way to add the best part of the introNetworks solution into your website or application. Built in Javascript with a SQL backend and .NET middleware, our white-labeled component’s can be developed to integrate into any environment with a minimum amount of work. Imagine your users being able to instantly see other people they are connected to, directly inside your application or webpage, without having them leave your site or application to make a connection. The Visual Matching Engine components are complete with user interface layer, business logic layer and back end database support that reside on your servers so you can manage all of the interactions and make the system work exactly how you want it to. You also have access to the matching database for other uses that may come up in the future.Watch the Visual Matching Engine in action, in this example from PeopleFluent’s Socialtext integration.
Watch this example of the Visual Matching Engine embedded in a WordPress environment for a Non-Profit Network application.
The Visual Matching Engine Three-Tiered Architecture
How Everything Works Together
The Visualization Components – Pin and List Views
The unique visualization of a user’s best matches is placed on a Dashboard, embedded in a Profile, and used on Group pages to show how the members of a Group are all related to each other by Skills, Passions, Experience and Interests. This gives your application a very compelling view of the audience, what they have in common with each other, and provides a more deliberate way for them to connect with each other.Users can see their best matches at a glance. Hovering over a pin brings up information about the person, allowing for quick contact.
Users toggle between the visualizations and can have a more traditional list view so they can scroll through their matches quickly to find those that they wish to connect with.
Selecting Tags and Editing the User Profile
This interactive tool gives users the ability to select tags/keywords that describe themselves and specify how important each tag is. Selecting the gear icon brings up the capability to interactively edit their selected tags. When words are ranked from Important to Most Important, the embedded engine can make extremely precise matches. The tags are curated by the site administrator and can be changed as required to reflect the changes in the audience.
Profile Component (What We Have In Common)
This embeddable widget shows how users describe themselves using the Tag Selector and which ones they have in common with the person viewing their Profile. Used to help find common interests and subject matter experts, this simple and powerful visualization is a key addition to the Profile page. You can easily hook up any communication links here as well.
Social Search – Selecting Tags
This easy to implement search widget allows users to discover the attributes of everyone in the system and view the results interactively. From these results it’s easy to invite them to Groups, communicate, and collaborate anytime you need a highly targeted set of users, fast. Users select the magnifying glass icon in the upper right to make tag selections or to search by Name.
Configuring the User Types, Tags and Colors of the Interface – Administrative Component
It is a simple process for the Site Administrator to edit the keyword lists and titles. Adhering to branding and style guides for color is easily accomplished. This is only available from an administrative level.
Usage Reports, designed as required.
As the Visual Matching Engine components are deeply integrated into a host application, portal or website, the reporting mechanism and interface will change to suit. Reports that show other information stored in the database can be created as a part of the integration effort.
This is an example of a Tag Cloud that shows what words were selected and can be exported.