Well it’s been a full on January and a frenetic February so far but we rapidly approach the launch of the new site! It’s imminent now, literally days away and we’re working like beavers to test as much as we can. This site is a quantum leap away from our existing live site. We’ll be launching new features, a new look and feel and an improved set of existing functionality! But what does this really mean?
New Features:
Event search
This is possibly the most significant, if one of the easier, new features we’ve implemented. We’ve been gathering the events of pubs (naturally this has been focussed on Norwich at the moment due to our Norwich Project) but with the new site we’ll be rolling out the event search. You’ll be able to find events by type, location or date and results are shown in a format to suit you – from just the plain old list, to calendar view, to map view.
Folksonomy
Strange name isn’t it, but what it really means is people adding tags to identify things – like “this event is a ‘Quiz’” or “we’re a ‘Live’ ‘Music’ ‘Pub’ and we also show ‘Sport’ including ‘Football’ on a ‘Bigscreen’”. People who create public content such as events, clubs and venues will be able to tag that content to help others find it! This is called a folksonomy – it’s a taxonomy created by folks! 
Browse clubs, venues, events!
Once you have a folksonomy in place, it’s then possible to browse the events, clubs and venues using those tags! It’s never been easier to actually find what you want!
Create events without needing a club!
Up till now you’ve needed a club to create an event on the site, however, with this release comes the ability to create a standalone event. If you see a venue you like or an event you like, you just need to login to invite your friends – and they don’t need to register to set attendance, but if they do, they can get customised reminders!
Set attendance without logging in!
As I’ve just mentioned, the new site comes with simple attendance – regardless of the event type: public/private, club/standalone, venue/personal the invitees or club members can set their attendance by clicking a link in an email or by sending an SMS!!!
Control your reminders
We’ve implemented cascading reminder control – now you can configure your reminders at a global level, a club level or an event level. No more will you be out the loop on your events – although you could of course be out the loop if you want to be
Control your privacy
We’ve also implemented full control over which notifications you receive from the site. Naturally there are some which we have to send by default, but any which are not essential you can switch off!
New Design:
As this is such a major launch we needed a major facelift to go with it! The new site design draws upon all we’ve learned about how our users interface with the site, from those creating clubs and events to those running venues. Our favourite feature has to be the “Online Blackboard” for managed venues, here’s an example (bear in mind it’s test data):
Improvements:
And then there are the improvements! Of which there are almost too many to mention!
New Form Style
To make it easier to complete forms we’ve now included tips and help copy on the right hand side of the most important ones. Not all forms have this help text but we started with the most important first – over the year we’ll add to what we have.
More event details
Events (whether club or standalone) can now be public or private. That means you can create a standalone private event which is invite only, or make it public available to everyone! Or perhaps you’ve a public club which wants a private event (perhaps a board meeting) or a private club which wants a public meeting… you get the idea!
We’ve also added start date/time and end date/time giving you far more flexibility over how long your event runs – any option is possible now! For example
Start Date: 7th May 17:00
End date: 8th May 02:00
Finally, we’ve added those tags we mentioned and event cost/capacity note fields.
More than one venue!
It’s now possible to create an event with more than one venue too!!! This means that should you want an event to start somewhere, move on to a new venue at a given time and then go somewhere else then you can list them with dates and times. For example:
Title: It’s my Birthday
Venue 1: Pizza Express 7/7/07 at 17:00
Venue 2: Dog and duck 7/7/07 at 19:00
Venue 3: Bar Humbug 7/7/07 at 22:00
Venue 4: Pacha 7/7/07 at 23:30
Each venue will come plotted on a map on the event detail page which invitees or browsers will see. And there will be a link to a google map too! Public venues that are in our system will link to a venue detail page giving a full 360 degree detail for anyone coming to the event.
New Logged in Homepage
A new homepage with everything on it! We think it’s best to have a homepage which acts as a dashboard and shows you everything you’ve got on in one snapshot – well, soon that’s what you’ll have! You’ll also be able to set your location and see events which are happening around you; in the future as we get more events we’ll offer up push data feeds such as RSS or email.
There’s just too much to mention I give up!
But I will put on record right here and say a big thanks to everyone who has worked or contributed in both small and large ways to this launch! Again there are too many to mention but the biggest thanks goes to Phil who has literally made his fingers bleed I think getting this one ready!
Not long now…
