zombiespuds.com is indeed available.

BrewsCruise

PLEASE!!!! No more zombie shtuff.

It's about to get worse. Combine BRAD PITT and Zombies... World War Z comes out next summer.

Taken.

As Blake Shelton says,

ItsALLaboutTONIGHT.com

Cityvents
Posted via Mobile Device

SocialZombie.com

Ok I went with EventZombie.com for now

It isn't even close to being in BETA... but it you want to check the ALPHA.01 version which is mostly just debug data for my benefit... it's up at EventZombie.com

This is JUST the map portion... doesn't have proper links yet and the UI is garbage.. but you can kind of see what it will do someday...

OH, and the "district" it shows is a small part of downtown Austin known as the Red River District.

Obviously, the entire thing will need a completely different interface for phones... so don't expect it to work well on a phone in it's current state.

any feedback is welcome.

kewl. looks like a few clubs have gone belly up since the last time I was there. what I noticed about your workings;

when I clik the sidebar name text, it should zoom to where I only see the one marker or make it ballon or something.

Also, make a cool backgr for that sidebar.

I like the idea. Just threw away local rags here and was thinking to self -- don't pick up those papers anymore, you rarely look at them and look online instead.

What clubs do you think are missing or went belly up? The only one I KNOW is missing is Swan Dive which is owned by Barbarella so they are the same entry.. I am working on splitting that out soon.

On the sidebar.. I will make it zoom more and the goal is to get it to open the infowindow when you click, right now that only works for Valhalla, the DOM listener I added seems to only work on the last entry for now but I should be able to fix that.

I will definitely change the look of the sidebar.. I may even add sub info to it under each bar if there is an event or post that is happening the same day. For now, I made same day posts/events show green.

Thanks for the input!

Oh and check back often, I am working on it right now, so tons of changes should happen in next few hours as well.

ok fixed zoom.. it is at second zoomiest level.. should be good enough.

ok, fixed DOMevent issue.. (javascript sucks ass)

Now when you click a venue/bar it recenters map AND opens the infowindow for that location.

When you click on multiple locations in succession, it should close the current bar window before opening the next one.

AHH! thanks.. I thought of that a long time ago and totally forgot to look into implementing it...

See guys, this is the kind of input that helps me immensely! :D

Thanks seedy.

Anything else? All the infowindow data will be reformatted to look much nicer at some point, for now it is just there to debug. Any suggestions regarding it are much appreciated though.

After clicking around a bit, I get a blue mask over the map. That needs to go.

FIXED!

hmm, not sure what I can do about that.. that means you have "selected" stuff. Usually caused by an inadvertent click and drag. I'll see if there is a way to make the map section unselectable.

I would be hanging around the string of bars in the same area. The prosecutors office is conveniently close to where I would hang out , :banghead:

ha, even worse.. that building is the entire downtown police HQ.

It's funny though,, the bar district FURTHEST from the police (West 6th) is the safest and as you get closer to Police HQ you get shadier and shadier.

oh, and that isn't the only area downtown with a string of bars.. it's actually the second smallest "district" downtown. There are something like 250 bars(including restaurant and hotel bars) in downtown Austin.. and downtown Austin is tiny.
All of downtown Austin is only about twice the size of Penn Valley Park in KC.

If you add East Austin and South Congress you get a ton more bars all still within walking distance.

The event boxes go off the map. When you click a bar, the event box should be centered so you can read everything without having to scroll the map down.

That's a google maps thing.. not sure I have much control over it but I'll see what can be done.

Oh, and in my browser it adjusts to fit it on the screen.. (CHROME)

You're right. It didn't adjust on firefox but it did on chrome.

ZeventHorizon.com

CrowdPleasers.com

OneForTheMoney.com

ZombiePoppers.com

DaVooDooShuffle.com

DeathOfNight.com

MidnightJunction.com

MoonChildSymphony.com

DawnstarArchipeligo.com

I think we are good on the name for now... but I still need feedback on the viability of the site concept itself and on how to present the data.

Ok added clickable linkage from events to the FB event page if the event is from Facebook (I grab events from multiple sources)

You can test it with Red Eyed Fly.. they seem to be the best at posting FB events.

Just added images to posts that have them and now you can click the image to open the post and see the whole image in all its glory in a new tab.

I also removed some of the annoying debug code I had in place for myself.

I think you know what is wrong with it. Functionally, it seems fine but it needs dressed up significantly. I'm sure you're on the right track.

Lookin' good on a laptop.

Probably want to switch to a sans-serif font (yeah I know it is an alpha).

I know you haven't made a mobile app yet, but I'm guessing that is how 80% of your traffic will come in.

Seems viable, but I am an old married guy so I'm not your key demographic. Or even your non-key demographic.

Event Zombie is a good name.

yeah I know about the ugliness factor.. that will get better but not perfect because I suck at that aspect of things... but definitely won;t look like this for much longer.

I'm more concerned with usability I guess. It'd be easier if I was the type to go to see shows at different bars.. but I am more the type who is a regular at a few bars.. ok by few I mean 10... but I don't bother with "events".. so it's hard for me to judge if this is useful for those who do.

I think you are right about the 80% figure.. as soon as I am satisfied with viability.. the next big step is to mobilize it.. the plan is to not make an app but a mobile site that works like one... I have a pretty good idea how to make the UI already.

I'll prolly use jquery mobile so it will look somewhat like this..

http://jquerymobile.com/demos/1.1.1/...ges/index.html

Are you still looking for names?

How about...

thenitelife.com

or

austinnitelife.com

name is settled.. it's up and running IN rough form.. at eventzombie.com now..

Now I';m just looking for feedback on functionality, usability.

Once that is settled I will style the site and then add other areas of Austin, then other areas of Texas then wherever else I feel like there might be demand.. expanding it is actually pretty easy once I get to that point.

SO if anyone has an area they want me to test on, let me know!

I'm always late to the party. :( Oh well.

I like events and I like zombies, so... :thumb: I only glanced at the site, but everyone else posted what I saw on there.

OK there is a very rough mobile version up!

It needs work so suggestions will help...

If you go to www.EventZombie.com from a mobile device it should automatically take you there or you can go there directly www.EventZombie.com/mobile/

I added labels to the markers on the map since you can't mouseover on a phone.. they are a bit crowded but not sure if there is any better solution.

I'm curious what zombies have to do with it. That seems completely arbitrary and in no way describes the product, even with the "event" qualifier in front of it. Sorry, but it just doesn't make any sense. Maybe I'm missing something.

Zombies have nothing to do with it.. but not really important. Plenty of sites don't have much to do with the name. Look at Amazon.

Every decent name was either way too long or awkward... so EventZombie won.

I picture users staggering toward the event, drawn to it by an invisible but irresistible force.

The mobile version seems to work.

Now for the next step: make the map icons show where the hot events are located. Right now you have to click through each of them. Some of the venues have noting going on. If there were a way to show which venues had events for that day by glancing at the map, it that would be better (requires parsing the events). Maybe users could click on an "I'll be there!" button to increase the hotness of an event. That would induce a positive feedback mechanism whereby your website and some key early voters, could really drive the local party scene.

The map icons already do that... green = events today and blue= upcoming events... I just didn't have a KEY up until just now.

My next step is to add a FACEBOOK CONNECT button to highlight events on the map that you have friends going to.

I do like the idea of having my own "check in" system though... I'll think about it.

ok, guys... give eventzombie a shot on a mobile device and let me know what sucks about the current layout. I want to get it looking "good enough" before I open up other areas. I think we are slowly approaching that point but any feedback would be great.

ok, working on a LIST view option now, what do you guys think? BY DATE as default with an option to show by BAR/VENUE?

Just a heads up, if you are scraping info directly from Facebook, there's a good chance they would view that as a TOS violation and could be sending you a cease & desist. Same thing happened with PadMapper & Craigslist. The way they got around it was by scraping their data from Google caches.

Just something to be aware of. Good luck with the site!

Don't think I'll ever use it. Perhaps if you would have picked my suggested name, then maybe. However, it appears that your lack of ability to recognize genius when you see it has lost you a customer for life.

I'll just continue freeloading off your other website, which used to have Chiefs news, but now just has ban stickies.

:harumph:

:D

I don't scrape from FB I use their API. It's all above board and within the TOS.

Ok for anyone still interested in helping me out.. the mobile version now has a LIST view you can get to from the map..

Here are my questions...

I am thinking of splitting the button that send you to the map so you can pick either map or list from that main screen. Good idea?

Also, the list view only shows events not FB posts... part of the reason is that events can be listed by present and future date of event but facebook posts are all in the present or past.. so they wouldn't fit the format. The problem is.. people often post events as just text in a post... well I have no way of identifying those. One thing I am looking to do is add an additional layer to the parser that looks at the data and any posts that links to an event would grab the event data and check the venue address then "promote" that post to an event in the db. Unfortunately these are rare.. most times it's just text like "Hey my band The Ninnyhammers is playing tonight here at Smokeys, come check us out!"

SO.. I was thinking of having TWO list views.. one is by event date and of course noway for that to show posts but the other would be by bar and would show both upcoming events and recent wall posts.

Basically the same info you get here http://www.eventzombie.com/mobile/mapd.php?id=1098
but will all the bars for that area on one page with collapsible headers to separate them.

Am I talkin crazy or does that sound right?

Zombies are party animals.

OK.. so I have a style question to put forth to the masses...

On the mobile version (the only version I am currently working on)... the LIST view shows events broken down by day , if an event has more info, it is clickable but I also want to make the bars/venues clickable as well... my choices are...

#1 just make the bar name a link with the standard underlining.. but this will look confusing next to the events I think
#2 add a small "venue info" link after the bar name
#3 make the bar name a link with underline but no color change ..but I don;t think people would know it is clickable that way
#4 make the bar name a button

To see what it looks like now without the bars clickable... go to

http://www.eventzombie.com/mobile/mobile.php

It may not look right on a desktop browser unless you make the window small/phone sized.

Any feedback is appreciated! Once I get this problem solved I'm adding a bar-centric event list.. so you can switch between "by date" and "by venue" while on list view

ok, for anyone interested, 6th street is in the system now... and it's kinda fun to look at how many bars there are in such a small area.

http://www.eventzombie.com/mobile/map.php?dis=e6

Hopefully I'll have the rest of downtown in the system in the next day and can see all 8 districts on the map.

update... now you can filter the map markers to toggle the 3 types on off to unclutter the map if needed.

Update! if anyone has a tablet or iphone and wants to test the site, I'd appreciate it. I just changed height and orientation settings so... in theory.. it should fit any screen and change when you change from landscape to portrait mode

Also.. I need a small region OUTSIDE of Texas to test on... obviously KC is too big but I might do a small section of KC like Power and Light or Westport.. any ideas? Or hell I could just do my hometown of St Joe..

I think zombie does help describe what the site does. It's a mass collective that never stops. Or it can describe the person using the site that always on the hunt for a show.

Anyways, for fun these are names I thought of,
wheresmydrink.com
clubhub.com
seekeasy.com
speakeasier.com
eventally.com
showstarter.com
rockme.com
bardar.com

well, I wanted to test expansion to a different city outside of Texas to see if I had the db set up correctly for it and it worked.. sort of... I did St Joe which works except there is no "backup" data source like in Austin so the only data comes from Facebook.. which would be fine except it appears none of the bars in St Joe have discovered how to use Facebook yet...

So you basically have a map of bars with no useful info..

http://www.eventzombie.com/mobile/map.php?dis=stjoe

Now I need to do a city/region outside of Texas that has an event listing site with data...

Does KC have a "go to" place for events/music listings? I looked at the Pitch but it seems like they are pretty limited in what they have for info.