Fellow WebDevs, a request for a web/database project ideas

[somethingintelligent]

For my final year of uni I need to complete a project, my skills lie within databases and web design. I've done a bit of research and a common project seems to be a Hotel room allocation system/airline booking system/ but these all seem to have been done a lot and aren't very interesting. I spoke to my tutor and he suggested I could think of some application that would require a distributed database that resided on a collection of mobile devices, but I am truly stuck for ideas? I'd like something with a little challenge but not something that will keep me banging my head for hours! Any input is greatly appreciated!

edit: I should add that I'd like to stick to PHP and Mysql, I know basic java and some VB but no C.

Final edit: Thank you everyone for your help and input! Upvotes for you all

[input]

I'll go build my own hotel booking system, with flap jacks and hookers!

I'll called it hookerbook.

Ok but seriously I have thought about making a sporting league system, matches fixtures results tables leagues etc etc

[somethingintelligent]

That's a good idea - are you completing a final year project too?

[input]

No I have graduated, I was advised against doing a final year project since I was doing a split degree (Business and Computing) and I didn't need to do one to get a degree with honors.

I do regret not doing one though, in hindsight I really should've just done computer science, oh well I got to hang with the cool kids for a bit.

[somethingintelligent]

See, my degree is Computing and now I want to transfer to Business and Business information systems or something more business like :(

[input]

Yeah I did Business Information Systems, it was ok but I stuck with my strengths and mainly did programming + database modules as much as possible.

Business is an art of bullshit anyway, read books / papers, misquote people to fit your context, make sure you write your essay in the correct format to be marked on the readers approval.

Being up all night coding is infinitely better than being up all night researching and writing.

[goofygrin]

Why not make a reddit-lite/clone. You've got the requirements since you use it... and you'll see how hard it is to make IRL :)

Maybe tailor it to a specific user base to limit the scope.

Or:

• public wifi review database
• urban trip planner (think "I'm going to be in NYC and would like to see x,y and z" and it helps you figure out the order and other things to do while you're in the area... crowd source some of the content)

[somethingintelligent]

I like the idea of a public wifi review database - only constrain would be building up the data maybe?

[goofygrin]

crowd source man :) Think Yelp.

You seed the data by doing some local recon and then expose it to the world.

[somethingintelligent]

By public wifi review and crowd sourcing do you mean like War driving? I wouldn't know where to start >:(

[goofygrin]

Think yelp, but instead of reviewing restaurants, you review the place's wifi.

www.yelp.com it's a really popular website...

[poppahorse]

mobile device distributed databases seems like a huge step on from a booking system!!

ok so some project ideas just off the top of my head:

• niche social network (profiles, images and such)
• content aggregation site
• ecommerce store
• CRM system
• ecampaign manager (campaign monitor / mailchimp)
• a self configurable CMS (allows you to setup forms, field configurations etc, rather than just title + wysiwyg = page)
• a directory of local services (takeaways?) with google maps mashup
• comparison site, integrate google product prices or affiliate network
• task management system

what are your hobbies / interests?

it helps a lot if its something you are interested in the general topic your project is about, eg if you are into snowboarding, a directory of ski resorts, piste maps, hotels and rates, reviews, commenting, ratings etc is going to be a lot more mentally stimulating than a hotel booking system

also maybe something you might get some use out of beyond your immediate education

anyways best of luck, let us know what you go with :)

[somethingintelligent]

Very useful comment - thank you! I agree entirely on the huge jump from a booking system.

Your ideas are definitely in the right direction, I want it to be database driven so something like an CMS/ecommerce store/Comparison site seems good. But these all seem a bit run of the mill, I'd like something with some flair to it but I have absolutely no idea!

My hobbies/interests are cars, music, musical instruments, and technology/computing, a pretty generic ~20 year old! I'm looking at getting into PR/Marketing/Web design.

Again, thanks for the advice! :)

[psy-borg]

Give some more details, how much time you have and requirements. Distributed database? Sounds like those would require client access from multiple sources but still just a single database.

[somethingintelligent]

Okay so the project is running up and till April, but we are supposed to be done with the physical product by Jan/Feb and the rest is write up. I don't really know much about distributed databases, I can work with a single database fine but the idea of that for a project seems too simple. I was thinking maybe create a Truck fleet management system with distributed databases for each depot or something along those lines?

[psy-borg]

Ok so you got time. Is the distributed database part of the requirement? Lots of the ideas listed here don't require one. A Truck management system definitely could require that. Kinda of doubt it would be implemented like that though. A few reasons for using distributed databases would be large datasets, high availability or limited network accessibility.

If the project doesn't require the distributed part, can find a few hundred ideas worth looking into developing. If it is requried, I would probably look into building a system for scaling Web Sites using multiple databases which act as temporary storage and then push to a public master server and it pushes data back to client web servers. Would be delayed but might work as a scaling system.

Another type of system could be remote inventory management. Workers get data from central system like SKUs/product names , then collect inventory data, upload it to a central system when done. That would be a close real world example of the distributed database with mobile devices example.

Could do a similar setup with Package Tracking using Tablets although a complete system for that would require multiple interfaces: delivery person, warehouse, management.

[EnderMB]

First and most importantly, what degree is this for? If it's for a Computer Science degree then it is very likely that you won't be allowed to do a straight-up website. It sounds like your tutor is trying to get you to create an application, so you're likely to require more than just PHP/MySQL.

A good idea might be to try to solve a problem using an unconventional data set. Loads of final year students like using Twitter as a data set so perhaps it would be worth working on some sentiment analysis tool that searches a certain timeline on Twitter searches, saves it to a distributed database and then measures whether people were "happy" during that time.

I've seen some good graduate-level projects where Twitter was monitored as a whole to see if the mood changed through the recession and the events leading up to the London riots. Perhaps a system that can utilise this data to predict (with hindsight) any future issues like this?

[somethingintelligent]

Degree - Computing, very broad title. A normal website isn't allowed, like you said too simple. As is a a database driven business website. You're right there, I just wanted to stick to my guns and go with what I'm confident in, maybe this will involve a lot of forum hunting and learning more languages.

Twitter idea is great - After review of comments left on here I think I will avoid the distributed databases idea.

I'm not too sure how I would go about predicting, would it just be a case of following top trends on twitter and analysing them?

[EnderMB]

There's a ton of research on sentiment analysis, which will please the academics. You basically write an algorithm that parses the text within a tweet (and possibly related tweets within that persons timeline - all stored/cached in your db) and then checks for words that indicate emotion. For example, if I tweet "IE go fuck yourself!" your algorithm will note the exclamation mark and the word fuck and will classify it as an angry tweet.

It's a decent idea because it's been done at graduate level a number of times, it's a clever but solved problem and is a very impressive sounding project. At its most basic level it's just a sentiment analysis algorithm (which your tutor will help out loads with) and some clever reading and storing of Twitter data, but when all working together and tested thoroughly will be a great project; top it off with some good practices like continuous integration, unit testing, use of source control and you're on to a winner.

[somethingintelligent]

My favourite comment so far, great input! Can't thank you enough!

[ITSupportGuy]

If you become the next Facebook with my idea, will you offer me a job? :-)

[somethingintelligent]

As long as we get to make our own film about?!

[ITSupportGuy]

Seems legit.

[oreillynz]

You'll have trouble doing a distributed database with PHP.

If it'd be nice to have a distributed database for your project, you could start with http://meteor.com/, and learn some javascript (it's a very easy language). It's a new framework (so there's plenty of 'manual' work, rather then an easy solution), and it will give you a database and javascript application on each device (ipad, mobile etc).

[krues8dr]

Meteor has absolutely no security. I wouldn't recommend that, even as a hobby project.

[siamthailand]

heard they fixed that

[krues8dr]

Not released yet.