It is no secret that we are huge fans of SXSW as well as the occasional happy hour. So, it is with great excitement that we introduce you to our latest project, HappyHour! Conveniently, and obviously, located at HappyHour.org.
Currently HappyHour! is in pregame mode, which is a slightly less-than-clever way to say we're ready to talk about it but it's not done yet—the code is still catching up to the big idea. However, we are launching a short preview of HappyHour! specifically for the 2009 SXSW Interactive conference in Austin, Texas. HappyHour will be live and running with limited but very specific functionality for SXSWi.
HappyHour.org is a small web-based social event application created specifically for the iPhone (yes, works with Android too). It's not really a social network and not really an event site; and it's most definitely not "web 2.0". Simply put, it's a place to find the "best" events based on what your friends and others are saying. And, if you and your friends are not feeling any of the events around, you can create your own.
It's kind of like a hook-up between Twitter and Upcoming, HappyHour! is the best place to the find the best events. While Upcoming and Facebook let you tell your friends what you plan to do, HappyHour! lets you tell your friends what you are actually doing.
We noticed a trend the past few years at SXSW, there were lots of parties but little communication between groups of friends to find out who was where as well as which parties were worth the trek and which to avoid. While things like Upcoming and Sched are great for planning ahead of time, we really needed something that showed us what was going on in real-time. We all have a tendency to RSVP to everything, which is less than helpful when trying to meet up with friends the night of the parties! And what do you do when all of the parties are dried up or their lines are longer than 6th street; we needed a way to organize a party on the fly and get our friends together. So, HappyHour! was created to be just that.
While we are publicly sharing HappyHour! now, we are actually not turning on the full beast till Thursday March 12th; the night of the first parties. The idea behind the application is that it is real-time, so while we show all events now, you can’t actually say you are at an event or talk about an event until the day of that event.
We are pretty excited about HappyHour! and hope all of you find it fun to use and helpful during the over 80 interactive parties at SXSW this year (and counting)! So check out it at http://happyhour.org (the iPhone version is where the real magic happens).
HappyHour! is a collaborative effort by the nclud team and the brilliant developers at 200 OK. A big thank you to Jeremy, Jason and Justin for really making this an exciting project to work on and bringing to life something pretty damn cool. A lot of late nights, potbelly’s, and “research” went into the making of HappyHour!
