Gorillaminds
Team Members
- DefV
- Jomz
- jelledesramaults
- Jeroen
What
Like CouchSurfing, but with food
Where
- Entry URL:
- http://tablesurfing.r09.railsrumble.com
How
geokit
geoip
DefV-geokit-geoip-provider
authlogic
facebooker
authlogic_facebook_connect
geokit-rails
jrails
permalink_fu
jquery.facebox
jquery.cheatcode
35 leaves of A3 paper + 12 colored markers, 24 crayons, pencil, a knife, a Flip, a quiet meeting room, a Joke and an espresso machine
Comments
It’s a great idea!!!
I like it :D
Great!!!!!
Looking forward to make some “dinner friends” :-)
well done :-)
Real Burgundians, really great people…. Love this.
toppie
I like the idea of the application. Also, centering the map on the location of the visitor is just pure genius from a UI point of view. Nice job!
This is a really cool up, I can see myself using this since I tend to eat alone from time to time. :D One thing I would add, is some type of vouching system within Tablesurfing, I think that would help get more active users.
Regards! :D And keep up the good work.
Conceptually awesome. Unfortunately, the execution feels a little lacking. I’m pretty sure the majority of your visitors are just seeing a giant map… not exactly welcoming. The map would be wonderful if it were full of dining options for each city.
I just want you to know that I’m making it my personal mission to make this happen. Every day I’m going to hand out fliers in Portland and talk to all my friends.
I need new friends and what better way than sharing food!?
Awww, I thought it was more complete. Seriously guys, keep going on this. It has everything that Seth Godin was talking about in his last speech. It’s a great idea, it’s something different, and it works better when you get other people to use it.
You may not be millionaires from it, I don’t know if anyone does that anymore, but it really is a winning idea.
Fucking genius! Why didn’t I think of this! I love food!!!
You just need to add people and you’ll be great! I like what I see! :) Great job! :)
@foca The Facebook/Twitter discussion in our team was very heated, and we decided to go with Twitter/Facebook/.. login (at first) because that is where people already have their community / friends, and we wanted to be able to reach that crowd automatically. We will consider other login options later on. About internationalisation, that’s mostly built in (using Rails I18n lib) but we do need all necessary translations of course ;-)
@Subimage First idea was to popup the screencast on the first visit (‘Looks like you’re new here’), but for some people that’s very invasive (for example when someone goes directly to a table). I kind of like the way it is done now.
Neat idea. I overlooked the introduction / screencast when I first visited the app and it took me a minute to figure out exactly what I was looking at.
I persevered just because it was for the rumble judging. If this were a random site I was hitting out of the blue I wouldn’t have made the effort.
Make the introduction / screencast more prominent and perhaps supplement it with a text introduction for first time users. I think the map @ the top is probably too big and for first time visitors. Just my gut feeling.
A couple remarks:
Of course you have your own set of features to implement, but I see those two as blocking the adoption among some of my couchsurfing peeps :)
I love this idea! I love to cook and being able to get people to sign up to come over for dinner is perfect!
As an active CouchSurfing member, I applaud you. I loved the idea. And I’ll surely use it in the future :D (in fact, I’m getting the entire Montevideo CouchSurfing group to come and see this, and start using it :))
I don’t have a Facebook account… so I just can’t use the app. :(
@Dan: If you don’t choose to publish to the site (you can set that when creating / editing a table) it won’t be seen. Only people who know the URL can see it. We’re working on an advanced private system where only your FB friends can see the table, but we’re still not totally there.
@kurtbeheydt We’re planning to add Twitter OAuth too.
I like this app alot! I love to cook and cooking for friends is even better. This gives me the ability to add ‘to bring’ items, which I love. However, it needs a private option. I don’t want my secret menu shown to the world! :)
Tablesurfing is a life AND tummy saviour!
add other authentication methods (twitter, openid, oauth, …)
good work
Clever idea, great team and awesome video!
@Digitalight We know, the video + audio was done in the last hours and we didn’t really get a “redo” :-)
the video explaing what your site is about has awful audio, it goes very quiet about hapf way through.
This was my favourite of this years entries. Clever idea. And something that I may actually use in the future.
The design was good, even though there were inconsistencies.
I really like this site and the concept. I also like the design and implementation. Very clean and simple. It is easy to understand what is going on. The only area I am fuzzy on is what actuall happens on facebook. Do you post that a person has an Empty Table to the updates stream on Facebook and Twitter?
I’m tempted to rate this app on the basis of the charming “screencast” alone. Well done!
The app itself is a pleasure to use, and surprisingly complete. Integration with Facebook feels like the right social context for this app, so it’s good that you didn’t put a lot of work into Twitter integration.
I honestly hope that Tablesurfing really takes off and becomes a global dining trend.
Great work! This seems like a really good start to a fun, and potentially useful, application.
In general, I like the focus on the map, though I think it could be shrunk a bit when you’re creating a table (where the focus should be on filling out the somewhat lengthy form – smart defaults would help with that), and the time links are a really nice touch. There are a few styling issues apparent in Safari – label/field width problems, that sort of thing – but making those tweaks would provide the polished finish that a live app needs. The interface flows pretty well, including during the Facebook Connect process, though I’d really like to see a non-FB user accoun option.
I think you’ve got the basic functionality down pat. I couldn’t find a way to edit a table I created, however, and that seems like a fairly important task. If you continue with the app, you might consider adding ways to make creating tables easier – I could see community potlucks and just regular meetings of friends wanting to be able to clone a single table record for regular use, for instance.
This is a neat idea, and one I haven’t seen before. The implementation is pretty straightforward, but you get good marks for innovation based on the concept alone.
As for usefulness – this one’s tricky. I don’t think I’d use it regularly, but it could be very helpful when traveling (much like couchsurfing, I guess :). And for someone who’s a lot more outgoing than I am, it could be a regular tool.
All in all, a very nice job. It just needs a little bit of polish here and there to be outstanding!
Great app made by a great team