PromoteGo.org open for new club listings

I've finished up the basic functionality to take in new club listings. This took a while because I also needed to add the ability to pull in new AGA listings with duplicate detection. As a club listing site, PromoteGo.org aims to be fill out the capability of the AGA chapter listing site with helpful features like:

• Geographic radius search
• Google maps directions
• Email obfuscation to protect addresses from spam
• Display search results on map
• Ability for you to manage your own club info

I also plan to add features for seeding new clubs: When there are no clubs within your search radius, one of your options will be to sign up to hear about new clubs in your area. Then, when a new club opens near you, you'll automatically be notified. Also, users will be notified if they want when people near them express an interest in forming a new club. The last major feature, and my original idea for the site, will be to help people arrange games to play in person. If we can move a fraction of Go games from clubs and online venues into public places like coffee houses, pubs, and parks, we'll raise awareness of the game dramatically. If you're a club owner and your club is listed on the AGA site, please try to find your Go club, or send me a note (my contact info is on the site) and try updating your club information. Most clubs don't have addresses on the AGA site, so we could really use that data to improve the quality of the search! If you're a web developer and you're interested in helping me out (the site is 100% open source), drop me a line! Promote Go in Your Community

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!

Maps and Directions on club list

I worked late into the night and early this morning, and I've finally been able to get maps and directions working the way I want them on the Go club display page! Do your own search and try it out!

The new PromoteGo.org

Well, the new PromoteGo.org is online! It's not ready to schedule games yet, but it does feature a geographic search for clubs near you: http://promotego.org/search/go_clubs/radius Volunteers wanted!

Yet another rewrite

What can I say? Before I started my job at the Los Angeles Times, I rewrote my earlier prototype of the PromoteGo application in Java. Now that my new job involves primarily writing, deploying, and maintaining Ruby on Rails applications, I want to spend more of my free time writing Ruby on Rails applications. Plus, I can write RoR much faster than I can write Java now. So, I'm embarking on another rewrite of PromoteGo. Stay tuned for more info...