Ungu

Date:	2006 - 2011
Desc:	Community site with live chat room and forum
Skill:	PHP, JavaScript/DHTML/AJAX
Role:	Owner, web developer, web designer, administrator
URL:	GO TO http://ungu.com/
Status:	Forum is now removed, while the chat room is still online but abandoned
Notes:	This website is self-funded. Being a personal explorative project, the chat room is only hosted (and highly optimized to run) in a shared web server, serving only three (initially was one) public chat room, and only spread by word of mouth. It was regularly visited mostly by young audiences from Indonesia and Malaysia, due to having an easy-to-remember name (ungu is purple in Bahasa Indonesia) and the fact that it has the same name as a popular music group band in Indonesia.

The main feature was the in-house ajax-based chat facility. The forum was using a third party package (SMF).

Chat room features:

anyone can join immediately without registration, but a registered user can keep their chosen nick name and upload a profile picture
no private message by design, anyone can follow each others conversation to prevent inappropriate chat
yet, easy to follow individual conversation using message filtering and highlighting by clicking on a user name
protect any typed phone numbers and only reveal it to the intended person
chat engine can be live updated without interrupting the ongoing conversation
allow a limited set of CSS properties to encourage users to play and learn some CSS to make their text unique
support the whole set of Yahoo emoticons and a set of other icons/stickers
auto moderation will filter inappropriate words and black listed URLs
automatic detection and suppression of message and image flooding
it will automatically kick and ban user or IP address when they reach some limit of flooding activity
it can prevent automated logins which can fill up the room with many fake users
chat bot with simple AI and fun personality, can host guessing games within the chat room
system keeps tracking how many chat hours spent by each registered users to gain special privileges
one user holding a "remote control" can play any song from internet for everyone to listen by typing special commands in the chat room. The "remote control" will automatically moved to the most active users in the recent month
voice group chat (beta), utilizing a third party framework (tropo)

Some numbers from the chat room:

12K unique visitors monthly (registered + unregistered users) during its peak life time
4K monthly users engaged in active chatting for more than 1 hour (active means have said something in each minute)
another 2.5K users monthly were active for 30 mins to 1 hour
5 to 30 users can be found active chatting at any given time of the day (day or night, weekend or weekday)
over the course of 6 years, total 4K+ users have been registered, and some loyal friends which I had fun chatting with have put in amazing 500 to 2000 hours