Down2Night, one of many sites that help you find and plan things to do at night, has beefed up its offerings
We reviewed the Seattle-based company last February, describing its offering of text alerts about events at your favorite night spots. Over the few months, it has expanded from two to 22 cities throughout the U.S. and Canada.
Its most interesting new feature is a “heat map” of your city showing you which nightspots are getting the most action — using a Yahoo Maps mashup. See below.
Down2Night has taken elements from venue search sites like Citysearch and Yelp, mixed in the event-planning functions of Evite and added some rudimentary social network functionality — all in the name of helping you get a better nightlife.
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Aside from the overlaps with the sites mentioned above, Down2Night also faces competition from sites like MingleNow, which offers social networking around bars, and social event sites like Attendio and Going. Another, SonicLiving, focuses on music. Down2Night’s combination of features and exclusive focus on nighttime activities sets it apart, but in such a crowded market, it’s hard to see how the company will make any serious money.
When you search Down2Night for venues or events, you can filter the results based on the type of spot you want — by using so-called “spot tags” (see screenshot below) For example, if you’re looking for a singles joint, you can click “singles;” if you want to go where 20-somethings congregate, you click the “20-somethings” tag. There are spot tags for location, style (swanky, trendy, etc). If Down2Night has event information for the venue, it will appear below the listing.
Some people might find the site’s interface, especially the spot-tags, to be a confusing. Also, while there are listings for a large number of venues, Down2Night lacks useful data on most of them, so there’s usually no way to find out a venue’s theme or whether or not it’s rated highly. Down2Night is counting on its users to fill in the gaps, but without a large community contributing, this is a problem.
More significantly, we’re not convinced that Down2Night’s nightlife planning features are what people want. With the exception of concerts or major events, many nights on the town are executed on the fly, with whims (and alcohol) determining when and where venues get switched.
Down2Night offers basic social networking features — like photo uploading — intended to build community around your nightlife. One different idea is a “stamp” feature that gives you collectible “stamps” when you attend a venue and then contribute information about it.
Down2Night is missing more immediate mobile co-ordination capabilities, as well. Some Twitter-esque features could help immensely.
The company is currently self-funded but is looking to raise $1-2 million in the near future. It also now has a nightlife show on Justin.tv
See more at Mashable.
6 Comments
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Geoffrey Nuval said:
Thanks for the review Dan. Not sure whether you played with the site from the perspective of the target market we are trying to capture, however. If you take a look at our users, they are the corporate professionals and trendy urbanites in their 20s to early 30s, looking for afterwork happy hours and hotspots for the weekends.
If you try our system out, you’ll find it is not a place for just creating major events such as a birthday (Evite) or concerts (SonicLiving). We are a platform to find a spot based upon your whim for the night (music, vibe, crowd, district) and then easily notify friends via email/text. This is all created within a matter of minutes. The text notification is key, especially if people have already left the office and won’t have access to the web. As an added bonus, there is a centralized spot on the web to see who else wants to go (no more long email chains around the office).
The social event sites you mentioned were not built with the purpose of nightlife, but for all types of events, and the look/feel shows. Bright white and a bevy of web2.0 features do not convey the same image/vibe, yknowhatimsayn? Their functionality is based on events, while we are structured on the venues - with events as an added feature (a lot of times, people go to a club/lounge for the inherent qualities of a venue, not what DJ may be spinning there that night). This also helps us to scale faster (from 2 to 22 cities to a whole lot more to come).
Your points on content for some venues pages are valid and we will be launching a more robust review system very shortly (both editorial and users). We are also in talks with content partners to ‘mind the gap’. The stamp feature has proven to be an effective way to encourage users to post pics and content.
Our nightlife profiles built around this system were created to capture a person’s night persona - not to compete with other social networks. Employers are starting to look at Facebook and Linked-In before hiring, think of Down2Night as a place where people can still post their pics of drinking and craziness within the confines of a site built for nightlife. Messaging features, which is indeed lacking, will come very shortly.
As for monetization, millions of traditional ad dollars from alcohol and Maxim/MTV-type advertisers are looking to be transferred over to the web over the next few years - but there is a shortage of sites out there right now that truly match their vibe. If you look at it that way, the supply-demand curve looks a lot better… we will also be announcing a innovative ad-system for alcohol advertisers very shortly.
Carpe noctum!
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David said:
Don’t get your panties in a bunch . It was just an opinion.
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Jonathan said:
Bulky interface on down2night.com
Personally I like what this website has done in my city of Columbus OH.their calendar is pretty easy to use.
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Geoffrey Nuval said:
I’m not mad atcha, got nothin’ but love for ya. Just wanted to highlight/clarify a few things, that’s all.
Oh and I do get panties in bunches, just that none of them are my own…
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David said:
Nice ; )
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Vanna White said:
Hi there…Thanks for the nice read, keep up the interesting posts..what a nice Monday . Vanna White
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Vanna White said:
Hi…Thanks for the nice read, keep up the interesting posts..what a nice Saturday . Vanna White
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