That said, perhaps the text needs to be just slightly lighter in order to give it a little more contrast with the background. Also, the size is minuscule. I know that Ctrl-+ is not too hard to press, but if that's the first thing that every visitor has to do, it's kind of a waste of time. On my display, at least, the size of event titles is about the same size as the normal text on this site. I would personally increase the size by 25-50%, but I tend to like larger text, so take that recommendation with a grain of salt.
I agree with the other comments that the front page should have a little bit more useful information. It could be something like a list (in order of decreasing popularity) of the events that are happening that day. The search seems somewhat strange, because if I was using that site, I think it would be in a situation where I'm like, "Hmm... what am I going to do tonight?" not a situation where I already know what I want to do and just want to figure out when it is happening (although that is a legitimate use case as well).
In spite of the criticisms, I'm liking the idea, and I wish you the best of luck with it. Have you considered trying to tie it into e.g. Google Calendar so that people can easily add events? Of course, ideas like that are just added features, but I'm curious where you plan on going with this.
I like the additional upcoming links on the main page for now. I do like the idea you mentioned of putting up events that are similar to ones you have voted on, but until there are enough events in any one person's area, upcoming local events may be your best bet.
After reading the search description and trying out a sample query, I like it. It's rather intuitive and it performed correctly as far as my brief testing was concerned. One slight gripe -- I don't think you should use "u". That is, "as you would say it when u fill in the blank" should be, "as you would say it when you fill in the blank."
Anyways, I'm glad to see you taking the feedback seriously and making such quick changes. I really do like this idea. The more I think about it, I like how it connects an online community in the real world. I think this has some great potential, and again, I wish you the best of luck with it.
+ The error message "Phrase Erorr!" had me cracking up because I'm pretending it's intentional?
+ Everything is a bit too dark for this computer's dimming LCD.
+ Signup text inputs should probably have a maxlength attribute to reduce resubmissions. Not for security of course. It'd be neat if signup was identical to the way login works.
- i need to hire a witty copywriter
- i will bump up the contrast
- will add maxlenght to text input
sorry my replys sound short... Im reading and replying on my mobile phone
thank you very much for the feedback!
I've learnt from experience that you should take the time off before shipping the app. That way you're there to gather the feedback, do the bugfixes. Then try to do a second release within a week with a few little extra features that have been requested to show the community you listen to them.
Nice site, keep up the good work.
I am also thinking he only did this idea to learn and test it out rather than as a serious business venture but then he should still have done a more unique concept since their are plenty out there....
...and yet, for reasons I can't fully explain, I really liked it! It's simple, local, and with the opportunity for vicarious thrills imagning other's experiences...
My only suggestion is that a site like this (more than Reddit/Digg/YCnews/etc) would benefit from having multiple different groups or interests to filter with. Maybe front page is most popular events all around, but you can filter the list to show only the most popular events by music, or bicycling, etc.
Nice work, looks like it could become something great.
Sorry we didn't understand what you meant by search for events beer, try using "in beer"
So I search for "in beer".
Search result "for events in beer" yeilded 0 match(es)
Keep working on it.
When I type in the FULL title and it gives me zero results, it's broken. The first upcoming event is "Block party", and neither that, nor "block", nor "party" yield results.
I don't want "in" party or "with" party, I want everything that says "party".
> I understand that users are used to using a search query by typing a keyword and relevant results come up
Yes, so if your site doesn't work that way, guess what's broken? Hint: It's not the users.
Including "with" or "in" as an extra feature is one thing, but requiring it just makes it look like your site's broken.
You should also check out going.com (formerly heyletsgo.com). They are a Boston-based startup that has about 90k users. Going.com is a social network, but they try to get you out to events. I know this site started by using research from MIT's Media Lab to find events automatically. This might be worth checking out because all you need to do know is (a) seed the site with events and (b) get users.
Obviously this could be fixed by populating the venue database, but I'm wondering about letting users submit their own venues. It would be really nice to be able to submit "Tupperware party at my house" and provide the address, but then you worry about "Toga party at Steve's house" that Steve doesn't know about.
Just my initial thoughts / 2 cents.
I agree - put the most popular or upcoming on the main page. This is especially important at the beginning, when the majority of search queries will return empty results.
1. [vote up] this is a test Venu (Boston) on May 17, 2007 (tonight), posted by twism 2 weeks ago 2 points | 8 comments
2. [vote up] twest The Rack (Boston) on May 17, 2007 (tonight), posted by twism 6 days ago 1 point | 7 comments
Whoops..
How's that?!
Focus on PROBLEMS that need to be SOLVED. Finding what's going on around is not a problem anymore. Have not been for like what... 10 years?