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This page
is always being updated. If you have any questions about the site or the
Portal, please let us know and we will be happy to add it below. Your
computer may have cached this page on a previous visit. To ensure that you
have the latest information hold down the Ctrl key and press F5 on your
keyboard. What is a
portal? Our
definition is that it’s a ‘gateway’ to further related information. How can
you claim to be the number 1 dedicated pub and bar portal in London? Firstly,
many of the websites for pubs and bars in London are little more than
directories. Lists of names and phone numbers. You can’t search for music,
food, facilities, events etc. Their fine as a telephone book substitution. Secondly,
those claiming to be portals are not “dedicated” to pubs and bars in London.
They also list hotels, restaurants, shops, advertising etc. Many are free and
are still worth listing your pub or bar with, but we wouldn’t recommend them
as an online business solution on their own. Thirdly, Alexa,
a website that ranks millions of websites worldwide ranks citypublife at
101,791. (July 2003,) This doesn’t seem to say much on the face of it but
when you consider that it ranks sites over 16,600,000 websites based on unique
visitors, number of pages visited per user and that we are in the top 1% it
begins to mean something. There is not another dedicated pub and bar portal
for London ranked higher. What is
the purpose of citypublife? You can
find more about this on the About
Us page. Basically, it’s to develop a simple ‘search and find’
facility for people to preview London pubs and bars which have what they are
looking for, in the area and on the date they want. What else
can it do? In
addition to finding London pubs and London bars with the type of music and
food they offer, people can also find the type of pubs and
bars, their facilities, style, offerings etc. They can also find artists to
hire direct. The new pages we are currently adding in HTML include a job
search facility, which we are offering free. A message board, which can be
used for comments, suggestions, meetings, updates etc. A links page to sites
that users may find of interest. We are also looking at ideas to add
suppliers and services to the pub and bar trade and more… What do
the Green and Blue Buttons mean? The Green
Menu buttons take you to pages with Blue Sub Menu Buttons, e.g. clicking on
the Green Music Button takes you to a page with 26 different types of music
and 1 “Other”. Clicking on the Green Food Button will take you to 25
different food types and 1 “Other” Button. These are the Blue Sub Menu
Buttons. Why do you
need the Blue Sub Menu Buttons? This will
allow you to narrow your search. If we just let you search for pubs and bars
with any music you would spend all day searching information from dozens of
London pubs and bars that have been returned by the database. The areas
on the map are large. How do I narrow the search area? If you
click SW on the map and then Click Get Pubs (Location > SW > Get Pubs)
it will return pages of pubs and bars in South West London, you will see 3
columns. The left column is the postal code area, the centre column is the
name of the pub or bar, and the right hand column is the area. You can then
choose the pub or bar in the area you want. So how do
I navigate around the pub and bar portal? Well, lets
say you want to go and see a karaoke on Friday night in Hendon. You click on the
Green Music Button and then the Blue Karaoke Button, (Music > Karaoke).
Then Click on The Green Calendar Button and Click Friday. (Calendar >
Friday) Then, Click on the Green Location Button and then NW. (Location >
NW). Putting it all together you would click. Music > Karaoke >
Calendar > Friday > Location > NW. It sounds complicated but because
it’s built in Flash you can do it in a Flash. You can do the above in any
order, e.g. Calendar > Friday > Music > Karaoke > Location >
NW or Location > NW > Calendar > Friday > Music > Karaoke. Now that
you’ve made your choice simply click the Get Pubs Button. This will send a
message to the database to return all of the pubs and bars in NW London on
our database that have a Karaoke on Friday. Choose one from Hendon and click
on the pub or bar name. Wow!
That’s cool, now what? Let’s
assume you chose to look at the Claddagh Ring in Hendon, just click on the
menu links to the left of the grey information area. You’ll find all of the
information you need to make a decision. Don’t fit your criteria? Click on
selected pubs to bring back the pub and bar list that your search returned
and simply choose another pub or bar. What is
the purpose of the Green Searches Button? We added
this in August 2002 because of some feedback we were getting. It is used with
the Location Button in exactly the same way as before. If you are looking for
a Function Room in SW London you simply click Searches > Function Room
> Location > SW > Get Pubs. And the
Green Artist Button? This is to
help publicans and the public find an artist to book for their pub or event.
Same technique to use it. You want to hire a Jazz Band all you do is click
Artists > Jazz > Get Artists. Simply go through the selected list and
choose one, click on it and read all about the artists. In some cases you
will be able to go straight to the artists own website and even listen to
their music. You can contact most of them direct too. Why is the
portal built in Macromedia Flash? We originally
had it built in HTML, it proved to be very messy and slow. Quite simply we
were not happy with it. Flash has proved to be more stable, much faster, more
attractive and pretty original. I always
thought Flash was slower? It can be
if it’s not built correctly. Our designers, desertstar, are experts in their
field and have been very clever in making it quick, even on a 56k modem.
There is obviously a few seconds needed while the information is retrieved
from the server after you click Get Pubs, however, clicking between Menus and
Sub Menus is quicker than turning the page of a book. What also
helps the speed is that we don’t allow advertising, banners; pop-ups etc that
can slow download time. What are
the advantages of Citypublife Newsletters? We send a
general Newsletter to everybody once per month. Subscribers are from all
walks of life and include government officials, finance officers, the OFT
(keeping an eye on us I think), even one from a leading pub and bar
publication. As of April 19 2003, we have over 2,300 subscribers. We also
send Newsletters for individual pubs and bars that subscribe to the service
and build their own databases. This is probably the most effective way of
keeping existing customers coming back to the pub, many of these subscribers
use the tell a friend link at the bottom of each posting so it also brings
new people into the pubs and bars. It works very well. I’ve been
using the site quite a lot and have recently found that you have surrounded
the portal with HTML pages. Why is that? Not
everything needs to be built in Flash. The portal has a specific function; we
don’t want to slow it down unnecessarily. Therefore most of the new stuff
currently being developed is in HTML, however, the suppliers and services
search would probably be better inside the portal so we are looking at ways
to deal with that. A lot more thought needs to be put into it because the
portal design and development is bespoke, it can’t be bought off the shelf. I found a
pub listed last week but it’s not there anymore. Why? Quite
frankly, it’s down to the publican, if he/she decides not to keep us updated
on changes and we get complaints, we’ll remove them from the database. In our
opinion, if they can’t be bothered to keep their customers and potential
customers informed about what they do, they don’t deserve the exposure and
promotion. What will happen is that somebody that would have gone to his/her
pub or bar will now go elsewhere. We know from e-mails that this has happened
on a number of occasions. Don’t you
lose money doing that? Probably,
in the short term, but if we don’t keep the database information current
people wont visit the portal. If people don’t visit the portal the good
pubs/bars wont subscribe. How often
are the pages in the portal updated? We
guarantee within 48 hours of being told of the updates, however, we normally
do it within about 4 or 5 hours. We try and put new pubs and bars on daily
when we can, although this has been held up while we build the Phase III
Beta, this should be completed in early May 2003. What is
the cost to include pub and bar information on the portal? This can
be found in the “add a pub section” quite simply it’s £10 per month per
pub/bar. You mean
they pretty much get a whole website for just £10 per month? What’s the
catch? No catch,
No set up charges, No money up front, No update charges, No long term
contracts to sign. Nothing. How do
pubs and bars pay? Standing
order, which is 100% in their control. How do you
make money then? Currently we
don’t. We have put in much more than we have taken out, however, we truly
believe that what we do is a service that is both wanted and needed by
publicans and the public. Eventually economies of scale will kick in and
we’ll earn enough from it to take it forward. Do people
actually visit the pubs and bars that are promoted on citypublife? If they
didn’t, we wouldn’t bother with it. We have had numerous people who have
e-mailed us and told us where and when they went, booked function rooms,
accommodation etc. Some will tell the managers and bar staff, which is what
we want people to do. People have even met through the portal via internet
message boards. That’s why we now have our own message board, which we are
currently Beta testing. Most
people wouldn’t dare publish their statistics, why do you do it? Everybody
we talked to were shocked that we even considered it because if a particular
pub or bars stats were bad then the pub would cancel their subscription. Our
answer to that is, if their promotion doesn’t work for them, we don’t want to
take their money. I once heard something that has stayed with me for many
years, it sounds corny but it is the core of our business philosophy. “Success at the service of others, not at
the expense of others”. We
even give them a formula to take their statistics and calculate Return On
Investment, using their own numbers. If it doesn’t work, cancel the listing. How
many have cancelled the service so far? From when
we started Phase I in February 2002, through Phase II launch in August 2002.
Two pubs have cancelled subscription. One because the tenant moved and the
other because she quite simply could not measure the success in terms of ROI
and she didn’t have a computer to check her listing and stats. This is why I
try to get people to let publicans know that they found their pub or bar on
citypublife when they visit. We have also removed 3 because they wouldn’t
keep us updated on changes to their information. What is
Live Help? We do have
shortfalls, the main one being that we do not have information on all London
pubs and bars. What you do have though, are books with the latest
information. Live Help is there to make up the shortfall. If it’s not on the
London pubs and bars portal, it should be in one of our books, so we can help
you Live and interactively. So where
does it all go from here? We are
passively looking for consultants to help us build the database further. The
position would suit somebody that can live off other means for about a year whilst
slowly building an income from the pubs and bars they sign up. As we increase
the number of pubs and bars subscribing with more information, more people
will visit the portal who in turn will visit the subscribing pubs and bars. To contact citypublife direct: Phone: Perry, Business Development Manager, 07951 776 435 Linda, Web Development Manager, 0208 874
6823 e-mail: info@citypublife.co.uk © Copyright citypublife |
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