By Laura Finaldi, News Staff
One year after the launch of Instantnightlife.com, founder Kayvan Zainabadi said he and his colleagues realized they were spending too much time focusing on the clubgoers and not enough time on the clubs and bars themselves. As a response, the Instant Nightlife team has crafted several new ways for clubgoers to connect with the clubs.
Instant Nightlife was created last year by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) graduate students Zainabadi and Shahriar Khushrushahi, who made the site and its supplementary iPhone, Android and BlackBerry applications to provide Boston’s party animals with the most up-to-the-minute information on clubs and bars throughout the city. Instant Nightlife pays its workers $13 an hour to go into clubs and check out what’s going on – from the style of music being played to the amount of people on the dance floor.
Instant Nightlife will soon offer “Realtime Deals,” which allow club and bar managers to log into the Instant Nightlife database, post offers from cheaper cover charges to food or drink specials. They can also choose how long the deal is good for and whether to offer the deal to everyone or just women. These deals can be posted at any time, and as soon as bars post deals, they will show up on the website and apps.
Zainabadi said since the nightlife industry makes most of its money on alcohol sales alone, bars and clubs are usually more than willing to waive cover charge or reduce food prices.
“Realtime deals gives [bars and clubs] an opportunity to reach out to potential customers,” he said. “If the deals bring people in, people have the incentive to check the app and bars and clubs have an incentive to post the deal every time it happens.”
Going along with the theme of giving bars and clubs more opportunities to make money, another new feature – Bottle Service Auction – will allow club and bar owners to auction off a bottle of Grey Goose, Absolut, Stoli, or anything else they want, at any size or price they choose. Zainabadi said bars and clubs are enthusiastic about having the option of posting these kinds of deals because no matter what, they will make a profit.
“A lot of the clubs, we’ve noticed, are barely selling all their tables,” he said. “If you have six tables available and if by 10:30 p.m. you’ve only reserved two, you can log on and more or less auction off one of these things.”
The site will also incorporate a “get on the guest list” feature, reachable through each club’s page on the Instant Nightlife website. This feature e-mails the club the names of the people in a group who want to be on the guest list. A clubgoer would enter his or her name, e-mail and the number of people in his or her party, making for a swift transition from club to club.
Zainabadi said one of the greatest benefits of these new features is that they give bar and club managers a way to track how many people their advertisements are reaching.
“Every single cent is not being wasted,” he said. “It’s what I think is the future of marketing. It’s kind of like Priceline. Everybody wins. The bar gets people through the door, the user gets a deal. It’s a value by proposition.”
Visitors to Instant Nightlife’s website can let a specific club’s manager know that they want to see live updates in the future by clicking on a link on the club’s place page on Instantnightlife.com and submitting a name and e-mail address.
To launch the new updates and also celebrate the site’s one-year anniversary, Instant Nightlife is hosting a party at Umbria Ristorante Ultra Lounge tomorrow from 10 p.m to 2 a.m. The party will be DJed and hosted by Monster.com founder Jeff Taylor, and will mark the official launch of Realtime Deals. The club’s usual $25 cover charge will be waived until 11:30 p.m.
Zainabadi said he thinks once Instant Nightlife’s newest features take off, they will transform the nightlife industry.
“The beautiful thing is the fact that it’s real time,” he said. “Imagine you’re already out, imagine you go to a bar and it sucks. For the next half hour I’ll be able to cut the line at the next bar.”
