March Madness

So it's March, and if you're a basketball fan like this Duke grad (Go Blue Devils!), it is a WONDERFUL time of year. I'll most likely be spending the majority of the next few weeks camped in front a TV, bracket in hand, cheering my faves on to the Final Game (Duke/U Conn rematch with Duke coming out on top is my humble prediction this year.)

Go Blue Devils!

I know I'm not alone in this obsession. There are 5 million brackets entered in Yahoo's Tourney Pick 'Em. Last night I watched Duke trounce Binghamton and Villanova beat American from a local pub that was so packed, we could barely hear one another over the cheers from the surrounding tables. No sign of a down economy in that bar--at least not last night.

With so many games on the line and avid sportsfans nationwide vested in the outcomes, the selection of WHERE to watch each game is an important one. This weekend my boyfriend is getting together with a group of guys from his college for a marathon session of basketball watching, nacho eating, and beer drinking. With a group of 10 guys committed to hanging out in a pub for the majority of Friday night, all day Saturday and well into Sunday, there will be quite a decent bar tab to settle up at the end of the weekend. So which local haunt is going to benefit from their March Madness celebration?

Well, considering my house is an EveryScape household, that's where my boyfriend turned to for help with the pub selection. With a few clicks of the mouse, he was able to check the lay of the land at a few local sportsbars for the important things...How many TV's does each place have? What's the table layout? Is it a place that would appreciate 10 "enthusiastic" fans? The winning bar at the end of the day will easily earn themselves a $500 bar tab between food, drinks and tips--and that will just take care of Friday night. If they're the winner for the whole weekend--well, I'm not going to do the math to calculate how much these guys will lay out for a weekend of basketball but let's just say it will be a healthy tab.

When looked at this way, seems like a no-brainer for a restaurant or bar-owner to promote their business in this way. With a single group reservation, the owner could easily earn back their investment for their WebScape. In this economy, when marketing dollars are tight, a WebScape is a tool that pays for itself over and over again.

So what do you think? Are my basketball predictions off the wall? Have you used EveryScape to plan a night out or an event for your friends? Are you a business owner who has used your WebScape to get more customers? I'd love to hear about it.

EveryScape Facelift

If you're a long-time EveryScape follower, you'll notice that EveryScape got a little facelift over the weekend. Our homepage has been completely redesigned to better explain what we're all about to new and returning users, along with some key changes in other parts of the site.

As change is sometimes scary and not always welcome (check out what Facebook users had to say about the new Facebook upgrade!) I wanted to explain exactly WHAT we changed and WHY we changed things.

First, our homepage has an entirely new look and feel. Rather than immediately coming to the main portal landing page, where we used to announce what new cities had recently been added and made site visitors select a city to explore, we've broadened the messaging on this homepage. As we have a variety of people coming to our site each day for lots of different reasons, we wanted to be able to offer up different content to support different interests.

Old homepage

The new homepage explains why The Real World Online matters...We bring experiences of businesses and destinations to life online in such a way that online visitors can now confidently choose which restaurant they want to dine in, store they'd like to shop at, hotel they'd like to stay at, museum they'd like to visit. Now, within one click of our homepage, we offer information for business owners interested in capturing their business in The Real World Online, partners interested in using our visual search directory on their own site, job applicants interested in helping us conquer this enormous task. And, in case you were worried, you can still easily get to all of our city content by clicking on the EveryScape Local Search "Explore Now" button OR clicking directly on any one of the cities mentioned in the footer.

New homepage

Once you enter the "Local Search" section of the site, you'll experience a few other enhancements. First, we've organized our Destination selections in the left nav in a way that makes more sense: alphabetically, by state or country, and then by city. Our old navigation where we organized cities based on the order that they had been launched didn't make a whole lot of sense and I'm sure caused quite a few people to hunt and peck to try to find specific destinations.

Our other major enhancement is we now have a "Featured Business" category where we include links to all of the "WebScapes" within that city. A WebScape is the 3D experience of businesses and destinations that allow visitors to virtually walk around as though they were there in real life. You might visit a city that doesn't have a "Featured Business" category...That means that we haven't quite gotten there yet. Remember, building The Real World Online is a pretty massive undertaking so it's going to take us a bit longer to get everywhere.

So what do you think of our facelift? Does it make more sense? Are there things that we changed that you wish we hadn't? Are there things that you'd love to see us change? Let us know!

Inaugural Post

Aah...The inaugural blog post. It seems that there's so much WEIGHT to this--do I really have "Blogger's Block" already? Like anything new, I think the best way to attack it is to dive right in. Considering the stakes that our new President is facing and the fact that he has done just that since his Inauguration, I figure I should certainly be able to tackle this blog.

"Why have we started this blog?" you may ask...Well, here at EveryScape, we're tackling a pretty major feat--attempting to build The Real World, Online. Yep, that's right--the World. The whole World. Streets, businesses, islands, parks, walkways, malls, museums, hotels, restaurants...You name it, we want to capture it...So that you can experience it all online--and then decide if you want to visit these new destinations in real life.

There's certainly no lack of information on the internet. Google any destination in the world and you're likely to come up with hundreds if not thousands of websites that will supply you with information on that location...But how do you know you can trust that information? How do you know if the reviews or opinions offered up online reflect your own tastes?

That's where EveryScape comes in. By serving up 3D walking tours of destinations, hotels, restaurants and businesses, where a user can inspect every square inch of the location, EveryScape is empowering users to make up their own minds about the destination. We offer up an online experience that answers the questions not always covered in FAQs...Can I wear jeans to this place? Would it be appropriate for a business meeting? How far is it from public transportation? Is it romantic enough for my anniversary dinner?

When we first launched EveryScape, we thought that it would be a great service to show off hotels, attractions, restaurants and nightclubs. Now that more and more businesses have signed on to our WebScape offering, we're recognizing that experience matters for pretty much every place that has a physical location.

For example, yesterday we had a funeral home inquire about our services...On first thought, it seemed pretty morbid to me. But when I thought about it, and put myself in the position of having to deal with making funeral arrangements for a loved one, I realized that an EveryScape tour of the facility would really help that painful process. With one virtual look around, I'd be able to answer questions I didn't even know to ask--is there enough room? Will my family feel comfortable there? Is it going to be creepy? Certainly more helpful than reading a standard directory listing--and less painful than visiting multiple funeral homes in real life before making a decision.

What do you think? If you had the world as your canvas, where would you start? If you could experience any destination before you got there, where would it be? What business would you want to "test drive" before you spent your gas money to get there?

Hmm, so with this first blog post, I've touched on the President, world creation and funeral homes...Nice clear consitent thought process there:) As you'll find out, with the world as our canvas, we have a lot to say here at EveryScape. Keep reading--should be fun!