Sunday, March 22, 2009

PromoteGo.org moving forward

I've completed state listings and search result mappings on PromoteGo.org. I'm still looking for help to move the site along a little bit faster. The site is all about helping people to promote Go in their communities. You can see the current implementation at http://promotego.org/. Currently I'm planning three phases: Phase 1, already underway, is a better club listing with a map interface to help people add and edit their own clubs, and to help people find the closest club to them. Many people have already used it to discover clubs near them that they didn't know about. I've been working with Steve Colburn of the AGA to get this to a point where they can use it as the main listing tool. Phase 2 will be adding notifications for users to let them know when a new club opens near them, or when people near them register an interest to start a club. This is all about helping people who want to form new Go clubs. Phase 3 will be providing a way for players to arrange games to play in person. I want to promote Go by encouraging and enabling people to play in their local coffee houses, pubs, parks, etc. I really need help to make this work. The site is built using Ruby on Rails, which I use professionally in my day job as a software developer for YellowPages.com, but there are lots of ways you can help even if you don't write code. Please contact me through this site or join the Google Code project at http://code.google.com/p/promotego/ if you're interested in helping!