Nanyang technological University
Wee Kim Wee School of Communication & Information
Final Paper
(Report of A Social Media Application)
Submitted by:
Zhang Xijing(G1101884F)
Lu Yingfen (G1101838D）
Skin Master—A Social Media Application
Zhang Xijing(G1101884F) Lu Yingfen (G1101838D)
Chapter 1. Introduction
Social media is defined by Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein as the “Internet-based and mobile applicationsthat build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 and that turn communication into interactive dialogue, and allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content. (Haenlein 2010)According to Kaplan and Haenlein, there are 6 different types of social media including collaborative projects (e.g., Wikipedia), blogs and microblogs (e.g., Twitter), content communities (e.g., YouTube), social networking sites (e.g., Facebook), virtual game worlds (e.g., World of Warcraft), virtual social worlds (e.g. Second Life).Different types of social media have been increasingly gaining their popularity among people in different areas. The powerfulness and effectiveness of social media have exerted great influence on both daily life and business area.
For companies and organizations, social media can attract much more attentions from the general public. By this way, the reputation is largely promoted and the number of clients is supposed to go up. Second, social media can provide various kinds of news channels for companies and organizations, which makes it possible to rapidly share with the public the information about new products, services, discounts, events, and job offerings. Other than that, the social profile provides a more personal communication with the clients and social network users, and it is convenient to gather immediate feedback and recommendations from social network users. Feedback is considered to be of great importance because it helps companies to understand additional information about the needs and questions of the company’s clients and those people who are not yet clients -you can find out the reasons.
Chapter 2. Literature Review
With convenient access to the internet, people are now paying more attention to their body conditions. As a result, all sorts of applications and websites are provided for people to track conditions like diabetes and epilepsy. During recent years, skin-related problems are considered to be women’s biggest concern. Even some men are beginning to pay attention to their skin care. Here, we will introduce to you some social media applications in skin care area.
According to our research, there is one creative social media program for self examination, called Skin Tracker. It can be used to help people easily baseline their skin and moles for the purpose of detecting changes in the future which could be melanoma. Users are supposed to use the suggested poses to create their own initial set of whole body photos (using the camera). The other option is that they can also upload photos which need to be taken clearly and professionally. After the photos have been successfully imported,users can make visual notes on particular moles or certain areas of skin. It will be easily moving from note to note in the future as they perform a skin examination (e.g. each month). SkinTracker supports multiple users; therefore, one person can create a baseline for all his or her family members. SkinTracker runs on users’ computers and stores all data locally ensuring privacy and confidentiality. Graph 1 The Interface.
Graph 1 The Interface 
Graph 2 Viewing a Memo of a mole on the leg
Another application is ModiFace, which targets at female users, makes it possible for women to try thousands of cosmetics and hairstyles. Users just need to take a photo, and choose from thousands of lipsticks, blushes, foundation, mascara, eye shadow or liner color they like to try on. What’s more, it allows users to gather opinions from their friends on their new looks by emailing the result (and product list) to themselves and posting it to Facebook. If everything is oaky and a user decides to buy the products, he or she can purchase them directly from their mobile devices.
Graph 3 Thousands of choices for cosmetics
There is also another interesting social media website of skin care—SkincarebyAlana. Alana Mitchell is a licensed esthetician and skincare fanatic, who owns Spa Alana in Dana Point, CA and has become world famous for her personal approach to selling beauty products online. At Skin Care by Alana, users can get access to a lot of product lines. For our facials, the website customizes what products are used on users’ skin, to match their skin type and goals. Alana is still up to date and practices all of the latest and greatest technologies such as microdermabrasion and chemical peels. What’s more, in the website, there are tips on how to take care of your skin and use cosmetics and reviews of different kinds of products.
An application is also developed to
Users can have a free skin analysis and product recommendation by a licensed esthetician, all over their iphone. It is quite easy, and users just need to take a picture of their faces, and the photos will automatically be sent to one of the professionals, who will analyze the skin information and give response back to users. A sample of what they will evaluate is listed as below:
- Users’ skin texture, type, and tone;
- Age spots, wrinkles, blemishes, and pore sizes;
- Products recommendations after reviewing skin type and age;
Graph 4
Graph 5
Chapter 3: Scenario
Are you afraid of getting old? Do you always look into the mirror and don’t know what to do with your acne face? Are you utterly at a loss when facing the piles of cosmetic and skin care products of all kinds of brands? If you are the one who bother these questions, you will find a solution using our application. Skin Master is an iPhone application that allows the user to track the condition of their skin and advises some cosmetic products for users to improve the condition of the skin. If there is no particular problem with a user’s face, then the application will automatically make a list of products that are suggested according the skin texture.
For users who are not applying or using any skin care product, like toners, moisturizers, and creams, it is totally fine because they can use this application simply for texting and tracking skin conditions, such as acne, oily skin, dry skin, eczema, cellulite around the eyes, or even an area of rash. On the other hand, for users who are trying some new skin care products, wanting professional and objective opinions on whether it works or not, this application will be of great help. By simply tracking the improvement of the skin tone, it will identify the usefulness of a certain product. For users who are currently suffering from certain kind of skin problem, the app will also help users figure out the factors and reasons that lead to the deterioration of their skin condition and make some suggestions for users.
The market for beauty products and skin treatments is huge, with billions of pounds spent each year, but how do people really measure whether the product they buy really works?
Everyone has experienced a change in his/her skin condition at one time or another. It is a well known fact that skin condition fluctuates with time, what people eat, drink, other conditions they may have, menstrual cycle, medications used or other products that come into contact with skin.
Using Skin Tracker will give the user extremely important information into what exacerbates or improves the skin condition they are tracking, whether it is their own or that of their partner/child. The information gathered can help identify a cause, adjust a daily routine or could even help doctors when assessing the condition and potentially prescribing or changing medications.
Skin Tracker can be viewed in a summary screen on the iPhone or emailed to the user. This will allow the user to view all the information along a timeframe and identify relationships between skin conditions and other factors.
Chapter 4. More functions on the Skin Master
4.1 Skin Inspection
The function of skin inspection can be realized through the front-facing camera. As we mentioned beforehand, the Skin Master has 2 objects: basic skin maintenance and make-up for both female and male since there is no device invented especially for men but men also care so much about the external beauty nowadays.
Firstly, after taking a photo of face, neck, body (arms, legs, fingers, toes, et al.), user can get the skin moisture, wrinkles existing and potential area report, facial problems (acne, freckles, aging, scar and rough pore) and the before-after picture after the proposal treatment that is analyzed by the system and the operation for the make-up (cosmetic, hair style, color, sunglass, rings, toenails, loss weight, necklace, dress code, to name a few) by the user him/herself.
Secondly, there is an automatic face, body adjustment on the screen for better capture the actual size, height, weight. By analyzing the color difference, the height and weight provided and reference material, it can trace the contours (eyes, nose, ears, mouth, eyebrow, eyelash and hair) and the actual body shape of the customer. Basically, this is the first step for the following design and treatment, so the camera pixel should be in good condition, such as
Iphone 4(640X960).
4.2 Beauty Advisor
Secondly, respective advice would be provided by professional people or the previous user from some social network, such as, Facebook, Twitter, MSN, Google discussion board, Weibo, Renren, Pintrest, Taobao, 360buy, Meilishuo, Mushroom street, etc.
After processing the first step—picture uploaded. For the purpose of skin care, some professional advice will be given by the signed doctor, ranging from the products, daily diet，exercise, recommended regular hours for living. Also, experience from other peers who suffer the same problems will be collected and then be ranked by the system. And the results will be categorized into 3 elements: most popular, expensive to affordable and recommended. What you need to do just click on the top 3 advices or even the top 1 will do.
And for the make-up aims, users can vividly change more than 1000 looks including hairstyle, eye shadow, cheek powder, eye brown, lipsticks, eyelash, rings, necklace, ear rings, nail polisher, until he/she find the best ones. Moreover, there are some latest fashion models, celebrities and street snap pictures for imitating.
If the work is done, users can post his/her work on any of the mentioned social web or get into the competition held by the official Skin Master. And the winner can get the surprising prize, worth 1,000 dollars that can attract users’ participation.
4.3 Beauty Map
Once users make decision of the treatment and products, no matter expensive or cheap one. The system can get a clue of how to get to the final step—make the dream of being beautiful come true.
Step1: Based on the users’ postcode, address, (here an app of postcode will be provided on the website), they can search for the nearest/ cheapest/ most useful products, stores, doctors on the Google map.
Step2: Once they tag the location, they can make a reservation through the Internet. If he type one product on the searching box, the result of yes(red colors) or no( yellow colors) apparently.
Step3: If yes, the system will send an email of how to get to this destination, such as the transportation, telephone, the opening period to the users.
Step4: Users’ reviews on the service/products/doctors are important to the next user, so there is the after-using function on the Internet. They can link their likes, reviews, words to the social websites as well as the official website of Skin Master.
4.4 Unique Identifier—The Fingerprint Identification
Since the front camera is in high quality, it is able to identify the user’s fingerprint. So it is easier to attract more users because the process of being the member only takes you 5sec at your first time’s browsing. What’s more, your particular profile will be saved by the system automatically, even though your computer is shut down accidently.
Chapter 5. The Essential Technique
5.1 Face/fingerprint identification
The demand for a high quality of camera is essential as it is the first step of operating the system. Once the user presses the button of taking a picture, the system can read the new member, differentiate the contours and select the problems alike. Also, the system should be clever enough to remember all the faces and fingerprints for there is no exactly the same fingerprint in the world.
5.2 Database
Basically, the database is essential for storing, identifying, retrieving and collecting tons of information provided by users, such as the doctors, previous users, friends on the social website, et al. For example, professional advice on the facial problems can be collected through google doc, google scholar paper, medical website, to name a few and links between different social websites help in information sharing.
5.3 The website design
A vivid and apparent but simply in looking website will be design for the reason that users feel comfortable with light green or pink color which make the website professional, trustful besides less advertisement is important.
5.3.1 The searching box
To the ease of using the functions, a searching box on the top of the website is important. For example, the user want to test whether the Chanel lipstick looks nice on her face, she just searches “Chanel lipstick” then she can try on her face.
5.3.2 The category column
The Skin Master has 2 main objectives, 1000 choice and 10000 cosmetic brands. So the category column can shorten the searching process. For example, the user wants to choose the solution for a acne face. She just needs to choose: skin care-face-acne. Then the solutions will be provided.
5.4 Rating and ranking functions
As the trustworthy system is built on the rating and ranking information provided by all the users, so the rating and ranking systems are of important.
Firstly, a rating choice from 0—5, user just press the tab then the system can allocate the particular score of one particular product or service. For the Chanel lipstick 4/5 out of 100users, here, users can tell the percentage of the satisfaction is more than 99%, so this product is popular and trust worthy. Then the ranking system which is the most popular, expensive to cheapest, most useful choices. So the system can allocate different ranking categories to meet different needs. If the user wants something useful but affordable then she can choose the useful button then a second search based on the first choice. Finally, he can get what he originally wanted.
5.5 The recommended system
Web 3.0 will be used in the Skin Master because nowadays, users are lazier and they want the system acts as a old friend who understands what they want. Based on their preference, tagged picture, products, the system can remember their previous action.
Besides, no matter the respective inner or outer recommendations from the homepage or the social websites are complex for the system. So the recommendations system should use the data mining system– the basic and tag-specific resource recommendations are used in this system as well as a linear-weighted hybrid one.
To make it easier for the users, charts, tables and pies will be shown on the ranking, rating and recommendation functions. So the users will find it vividly and apparently to use.
5.6 Google positioning systems
For the finding the product part, users can use the Google positioning systems to find the products by one click. Then the system can locate his/her position and the destination in order to provide the best clue. A GPS technique will be used, also the app of postcode is essential for those who don’t know the exact place of his/her address.
5.7Mashup
There is no doubt that the API technology is essential for supporting the mixed system, such as the camera, Google position, user interface and email sending, etc.
1) The face/ fingerprint API
Either by I-phone or computer, the users can share pictures once they are online. For example, if he/she takes a picture by the I-phone or scan the fingerprint to the system, he/she will not be scared that the system denies the work had done before.
2) The official website and social website API
Just one click they can share the recommendation, product, charts or even their before-after pictures with their friends online. And they can send request for inviting them to join in the fantastic system together.
3) Email API
The Google map or the recommendation can send the chosen information to the users’ emails automatically without their pressing. And if they receive the email they can also press the link and get access to Skin Master vice versa.
Chapter 6. How to ensure user participation
1. ease of being a member:
As mentioned above, just pressing the fingerprint to the camera, after the system’s analyzing and then take a picture. You are our member without normal sign in name, email, confirm letter. That will lessen he annoying process and the rest profile can be added as the users find it interesting such as email for getting the useful information for Free, the age for better analyzing the skin type.
2.The inviting email:
With the help of the social network API, the previous users will share their before-after photo on the social networks that are the potential ads for Skin Master. As they said, the relatives, friends and colleagues are the best advertisements.
3.The competition:
Regularly, the beauty competition for surprising prize will drive users crazy. Firstly, they will post their work on the website and of course the judges are the other users. As a result, they might invite their friends on Facebook to rate for them. By so, our customers are becoming more and more.
Chapter 7. Advantages
There are 3 advantages of Skin Master in terms of website design, ease of browsing, updated information.
1. Website design:
Less is more in the advertisement. Since the users are our advertisement provider so the effort for ads is less. When they browsing the website they will feel nothing but comfort.
2. Ease of browsing:
And the process is apparent, there is a processing line on the top of the website: searching—analyzing—positioning—confirming. They will feel patient during the treatment and make-up because they know which step they are which is essential for they want to solve the problem and receive a confirming email.
3. Updated information:
Since the using of API, the fashionable and updated information about beauty is available on our website. We can ensure that only browsing Skin Master, you can know the fashion world.
Chapter 8. Problems and solutions
Since this is the new area of beauty on the Internet, some potential problems are inevitable but solutions can be found as long as we pay more attention to them.
1. Credibility：
Doubtless, there are some bad vendors who want to promote their products and service via Skin Master by giving fake information such as rating, ranking and recommendation for the sake of money. So the solution to this kind of problems is to lessen or even ban it by means of regular checking: once found, the user will be banned on Skin Master( thanks to the use of fingerprint, the fine is strict but useful) with the objective that we only provide trusty information.
2. Chromatic aberration:
The enquiry for the face/fingerprint analyzing, some users who have no high quality camera can not get correct information from our system or even can not get access to the website. Here we come out with another method for normal log in for those particular users.
Chapter 9. Reference:
[1].Haenlein, K. (2010). “Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media.” Business Horizons53(1): 59-68.
[2].Jonathan Gemmell (2011). ” Resource recommendation in social annotation systems: A linear-weighted hybrid approach.” Journal of Computer and System Sciences 78 (2012): 1160-1174.
