Hi everyone.
Founder Robin here!
Well I’ll start by saying we’ve been really REALLY busy; so busy in fact none of us has had the time to sit down and write a little blog, so it’s long overdue!
Since we last wrote we’ve:
- Launched a new look and feel in response to our lab based testing
- Launched Facebook connect
- Launched Twitter enhancements!
- Developed new pub/bar menu functionality
- Been promoting the service very successfully in Brighton
- Launched our ambassadors programme
- Been developing our mobile site
- Been speaking to lots of people in the industry
- And we’ve launched our Help section
New Look & Feel
After testing our old site out we realised that we could make some simple improvements to the look and feel of the site which would realise massive improvements for all of you, our users!
We spoke with Chris, our creative man, and he helped us put together a damn fine new look, which we implemented and tested over 4 weeks and then rolled out in mid July – thanks Chris for all your help!!
We’re sure you’ll agree the transformation is excellent and it’s incredible to look at where we’ve come from:
2 years ago as Official Beer Club:
Early 2009 as we launched Inapub.co.uk
And now as Inapub V2
Facebook Connect
This is an awesome bit of functionality.
The best thing about Facebook Connect is you can publish your events straight to your facebook wall, or share events and pubs/bars you find on Inapub with your friends via your Facebook wall.
For venues who sign up this means they use Inapub to create events and then share those events with any existing Facebook community or their Twitter followers, not to mention their Inapub community, Google & other search engines and our data supply partners – a great deal of bang for your buck!!
However, importantly Inapub now runs as an app within Facebook which means you can use Inapub while on Facebook – it’s a beta release there at the moment so there is much we plan to do over the coming months, but for now it’s functional. To view it in Facebook search for “Inapub” in the applications area or click this link: http://apps.facebook.com/in_a_pub/?_fb_q=1 – and make sure you become a fan or friend of it please J
Twitter enhancements for pubs
You’ll remember we launched Twitter back in May 09, and now we have loads of pubs with Twitter feeds but since launching we’ve actually enhanced them. No longer do they just tweet events, now they tweet events, drinks added & daily specials added – meaning as a pub your twitter followers are kept fully up to date with all your news.
We’ll keep adding to this over the coming months and let you know.
New menus for pubs & bars!
Up until recently pubs and bars could only add dishes to the standard courses of starters, mains, desserts and roasts, but now we’ve made the menu totally flexible!
You create the courses you want, you can put them in the order you want and then you can create the dishes you want under each course!
Total control! You’ll still enjoy the same benefit of having a full online and printable menu for all your customers to view, and we’ve kept “Specials” as the area where you can promote the dishes you serve that will change regularly.
We’re always interested in feedback so let us know if there’s something you’d like to see – our food search will come online soon!
Brighton Promotion
We’ve started working with the pubs and bars of Brighton – we’ve had an awesome response! So far 30 pubs/bars have signed up and more will be following shortly!
Here are some great examples:
www.inapub.co.uk/belushisbrighton
Watch this space – and if you live in Brighton – check out today’s events.
Ambassadors Programme
Our ambassadors programme launched this week. We’re looking for bright young things to work with us across the UK – for more details go here: http://www.inapub.co.uk/studentambassadors.aspx
Mobile Site
Our mobile site is almost ready to launch, we’re currently in final testing of the look and feel, and once our testers give us the green light we’ll be launching it with no great fanfare J. We will blog about it though as we think being able to see events and pubs on your mobile while out & about will be super cool – we’re developing a version for the iPhone too! Even cooller!
Speaking, and listening, to people in the industry
Not much to say here, except, we’re always wanting to talk and find out what people think we’re doing right, and also what people think we could do better! We’ve been very busy talking and even busier listening to lots of people in the industry in the last 6 weeks! We always happy to speak to you so drop us a line – anytime at site@inapub.co.uk
Help section launched
Finally we realised our website has become rather big – in fact there is so much you can do on it that it’s become a behemoth of a site! So we felt it was high time to develop a good quality help section to guide you through the core stuff.
It doesn’t yet cover everything but certainly it’s got enough to get you started. Have a browse and if we don’t answer your question then LET US KNOW, we always want to help so TELL US ASAP and we’ll get back to you!
It’s easy to find – just look for the Help link on the main navigation!
Thanks for reading our blog, we’ll try hard to write soon so watch this space!
All the best
Robin.
