For my capstone I am creating a website specific to disc golfers in an attempt to broaden the the Disc Golf community. One of it’s three purposes will be to view and rate courses to give players exposure to the best courses around them or even in the country. Another purpose is to invite other players to join you in a game. This feature is still in the process of being created as I am not sure what functionality it should have yet, but right now I think it will be very simple, merely selecting players and messaging them to play. The most important purpose of the site is to allow players to offer up equipment trades. This page will allow users to browse the current offers and make their own equipment offers. The trading system is very simple, users click on trades they are interested in and message the owner of the equipment being offered and they agree on a trade by themselves. My system is not an e-commerce site, I merely want players to be able to expand their trade market.
Your have clear goals and a good start on website design.
You may want to stick to your own code–as it’s a great way to learn and you’ve got a solid site up to now.
Your 3 clear goals are practical and create a good service for disk golfers. Without cluttering the site, I’m wondering if there are other services that might make sense? Like equipment rating/reviews, or disk golf stories, or playing tips. The more you can support the game, the more useful your site will be to your community. Also wordpress research shows that sites which encourage user input and content are far more popular–do you want tot integrate users? the best wordpress suite of plugins is buddy press if this interests you–you can at least see how it works.
I’d also like to see if you can develop a list of disk golf players you can communicate with tip players start to get outside. You could send them a newsletter or email to get info/feedback. This builds your social network, keeps energy up about game, and begins beta-testing process.
Your hand coding will give you skills you can use straight, or in other applications, so that’s good experience. Have you compared your App to other versions:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/disc-golf-pdga/id449511724
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.regasoftware.udiscplus
These others don’t seem to have the focus on the social applications that your concept has. Are there other differences you would highlight?
Have you seen wiziApp? http://www.wiziapp.com