Nitobi ‘Jiibes’ with Start Ups Building Innovative Web Apps

Thanks to Nitobi’s Ajax development expertise, Jiibe‘s web app provides an innovative and engaging way to help users find their dream jobs and ideal corporate cultures.

Greg Scott had a unique vision. He wanted to create an online marketplace called Jiibe where users could hunt for the ultimate job and work environment. The user-powered, online service would help employees and job seekers find corporate cultures that fit their values and work styles. It was an inspired idea that required flawless execution.

“I knew I had to work with Ajax experts. The research I did pointed to Ajax as the best tool to use for what we were trying to do with Jiibe,” said Greg. After meeting Nitobi’s CEO, Andre Charland, Greg confidently handed Jiibe’s development over to Nitobi. “I could tell immediately that these guys are closely tied with what’s happening with Web 2.0. They live it. And they helped me realize the importance on building a user-centric application,” he said.

The application design presented some challenges. How would they build an entertaining, but scientifically valid way to measure job seekers’ work values and preferences? To accurately calculate a user’s ‘Jiibe’ they would need to collect almost 250 data points. Nitobi knew no one would sit through an online questionnaire of that size. Instead, they designed an engaging method for mining user information with a fluid survey built with Ajax and chock-full of rich user interactions. For example, as users progress through the survey, a tag cloud appears and displays words and concepts that depict their ideal company culture. Not only does this interaction help to match users with employers, but the participants have fun learning about themselves in the process. As a result, Jiibe has over 60% completion rate for new sign ups, which is way above industry average.

“One of the coolest features is the survey interface,” said Alexei White, a lead developer on the Jiibe project. “We built a horizontal slider and used some tricky animations to indicate when data is changing on the page. The page feels ‘alive’, but the design is clear and uncomplicated.”

Another technical issue was instantaneously matching job seekers to companies based on users’ preferences, made up of hundreds of data points. To accurately and immediately calculate a job seeker’s corporate match, the application would need to stay true to the original algorithm while parsing a large database as quickly as possible. By implementing sophisticated MySQL database math features and caching data to eliminate unnecessary calculations, Nitobi ensured that Jiibe’s data returns would be both accurate and instant.

From the start, Greg worked closely with Nitobi on project planning, feature development and application architecture. Nitobi then combined Greg’s specialized knowledge of online recruiting and applicant tracking systems with their own understanding of social networking, rich internet applications (RIA), user-centric design philosophies and Ajax expertise to rollout the Jiibe beta in October 2007. Jiibe was built using Ruby on Rails 1.2 with a MySQL database and uses the Nitobi Ajax Framework for rich interactions, callouts and widgets.

“Nitobi is an ideal development partner for start-ups that want to get a new, innovative web application to market quickly. Their agile development process allows for flexibility during the development process,” says Greg. “They came back with good ideas, changes and feedback during each iteration. When you’re a start-up building a new web app, that kind of flexibility is crucial.”