We have just released a new version of the Pubs web site.
Key changes are that the pubs page is now under the new design, and a pictures page has been created.
The new pub page is pretty much the same in functionality as the old pub page, but rather than having a stream of images down the right, we are just showing 1 from a randomly chosen contributor. This has been prompted with us now having 50,000+ images of 24,000+ pubs. Some pubs now have over 20 pictures on the page it can look quite scrappy and be hard to actually see some of the photos.
So to see all of a pubs photos you will need to look at it's pictures page, this can be got to by clicking on the 'Pictures' link under More information, by clicking on the photo in the top right of the pub page or by clicking on the link 'View all this pubs pictures' underneath the displayed picture. Once on the pictures page you will be able to see when they were posted and have a little control over any images you own, as ever you can delete the image, and if you want you can let us know why you are deleting it. Also you can now switch the Watermark between the top and bottom of images you own, so if you feel that it would be less damaging to your picture you can switch it.
From the pictures page you can also view the images in higher quality where it benefits.
Behind the scenes the image code has been improved which we are hoping will allow us to do a little more with the pictures in future.
As a warning some of the site (particularly the new picture pages) will be quite slow, we are hoping this is a temporary effect and will be keeping an eye on it. The reason is that to comply with our new format the pictures are being reprocessed the first time they are looked at, hopefully as the site is crawled by search engines all the information will be rebuilt with a minimum of pain to the site users, but bear with us on this.
Other than that some of the changes are quite dramatic, and as this is a hobby site it is hard for us to properly test them all so do let us know if you are having problems with it.
To those who do upload more than 1 image of a pub, you can now queue them up by either selecting more than one image when you upload, or uploading a new image before the old one has finished, if you do do this though, wait until they are all uploaded before leaving the page.
Feel free to contact us through feedback, this blog, or the forum to let us know of any issues or improvements with this upgrade.
Wednesday, 29 July 2009
Monday, 27 July 2009
Marketeers who needs them?
Following on from my last post moaning about some marketing tactics employed by Vintage Inns. We noticed that one of Pubs Galore's fantastic members has been to and posted a review of the Titchfield Mill in Fareham. He also gave it a very respectable review, and far more meaningful than the fabricated review previously posted in the Vintage Inn deluge.
Well done to the Titchfield Mill for it's worthy service. And to any pubs (or more pertinently their marketeers) out there it is far more worthwhile promoting your valued customers to leave positive reviews (on any review site) than it is to indulge in silly promotional antics.
Thanks a lot to Michael Wright and all our members for all their regular contributions, the Titchfield Mill review did make me smile after my Friday rant though.
Well done to the Titchfield Mill for it's worthy service. And to any pubs (or more pertinently their marketeers) out there it is far more worthwhile promoting your valued customers to leave positive reviews (on any review site) than it is to indulge in silly promotional antics.
Thanks a lot to Michael Wright and all our members for all their regular contributions, the Titchfield Mill review did make me smile after my Friday rant though.
Wednesday, 22 July 2009
Marketeers = ?
We have just been watching an amusing pattern forming on Pubs Galore, and I thought I would amuse myself and possibly others by blogging about it.
We regularly see Landlords review their own pubs, and the more credible ones admit in their review that they are the owners. We are happy for owners to review their pubs, but do hope they will say in their reviews they are the owners, personally I think it makes them more credible. I find it hard to trust anyone who posts 1 review where they popped into the pub, can name all the beers on tap, name the landlord/landlady and will be going back (but don't post any other reviews on the site so that we know what other good pubs they will be going back to). I frequently think of outing them and have thought it would be a fun thread on our forums, but to be honest hold back due to the kind of arguments it could produce.
We also occasionally see the chains come in, and to date they have normally been relatively honest, in that it is fairly easy to see from their review that they are part of the company, again we have no problem with that. More amusingly though today we have been watching what is presumably 1 person involved in the Vintage Inns chain or its marketing setting up an account, posting about 10 items, then moving on and creating another account before posting 10 items. All the accounts are set up using the same type of free email account and are following the same pattern, so for instance see the following reviews:
The Fetykil Fox
The Curlew
The Cuckoo
Flying Fox
4 Different users who within 24 hours have reviewed in surprisingly similar fashions, and in fact we can see that in certain cases are clearly the same person.
As well as the reviews they have posted pictures clearly ripped off from the Vintage Inns sites and some of our competitors, so whilst they may hold the copyright for their own sites stuff, it is unlikely they do for the ones stolen off other sites. And also posted web links to the front page of Vintage Inns. We have rejected the photos, if you are honest and stop trying to camouflage your relationship to Vintage Inns we would accept the ones from the Vintage Inns site. We only accept links where the page linked to contains more information on the pub, so we are rejecting the links to the Vintage Inns front page, they don't contribute anything new to the pub.
We don't mind owners promoting their pubs on our site, but please be honest about your interests, this sort of bad practice is universally hated by users of these sort of review sites and can cause more damage than a negative review to my mind.
To be clear, I have no idea if these reviewers are involved in Vintage Inns, and I am sure that the individual pubs will be a reflection of how they are cared for by their landlords. But if you are a marketing company thinking of doing this sort of thing, PLEASE DON'T! Just be honest, it is still a valid review even if you have a vested interest.
We regularly see Landlords review their own pubs, and the more credible ones admit in their review that they are the owners. We are happy for owners to review their pubs, but do hope they will say in their reviews they are the owners, personally I think it makes them more credible. I find it hard to trust anyone who posts 1 review where they popped into the pub, can name all the beers on tap, name the landlord/landlady and will be going back (but don't post any other reviews on the site so that we know what other good pubs they will be going back to). I frequently think of outing them and have thought it would be a fun thread on our forums, but to be honest hold back due to the kind of arguments it could produce.
We also occasionally see the chains come in, and to date they have normally been relatively honest, in that it is fairly easy to see from their review that they are part of the company, again we have no problem with that. More amusingly though today we have been watching what is presumably 1 person involved in the Vintage Inns chain or its marketing setting up an account, posting about 10 items, then moving on and creating another account before posting 10 items. All the accounts are set up using the same type of free email account and are following the same pattern, so for instance see the following reviews:
The Fetykil Fox
The Curlew
The Cuckoo
Flying Fox
4 Different users who within 24 hours have reviewed in surprisingly similar fashions, and in fact we can see that in certain cases are clearly the same person.
As well as the reviews they have posted pictures clearly ripped off from the Vintage Inns sites and some of our competitors, so whilst they may hold the copyright for their own sites stuff, it is unlikely they do for the ones stolen off other sites. And also posted web links to the front page of Vintage Inns. We have rejected the photos, if you are honest and stop trying to camouflage your relationship to Vintage Inns we would accept the ones from the Vintage Inns site. We only accept links where the page linked to contains more information on the pub, so we are rejecting the links to the Vintage Inns front page, they don't contribute anything new to the pub.
We don't mind owners promoting their pubs on our site, but please be honest about your interests, this sort of bad practice is universally hated by users of these sort of review sites and can cause more damage than a negative review to my mind.
To be clear, I have no idea if these reviewers are involved in Vintage Inns, and I am sure that the individual pubs will be a reflection of how they are cared for by their landlords. But if you are a marketing company thinking of doing this sort of thing, PLEASE DON'T! Just be honest, it is still a valid review even if you have a vested interest.
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