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New Feature: Subscribe to Local Listings

openmikes.org lets you find open mikes in a variety of ways, but it's always been up to you to drop by and search. As of today, there's something new.

When you search for open mikes near you (via the "Search Near Me" section of the front page), you now have the option to subscribe to that search.

So you're searching for open mikes near Miami, and you choose to be emailed on Mondays:

Email me weekly

Each Monday, you'll receive an email like this:

What's new and updated around you, and what's happening in the week to come. Just what you were looking for, nothing else.

You can remove or update your subscriptions from your profile page:

Manage subscriptions

You'll need to register and log in for all of this to work, but you should do that anyway to add photos, receive notifications of comments on nights you submitted, etc.

openmikes.org - mobile version

You may notice a new menu item at the top of the page - "mobile". If you access openmikes.org via your cell phone, you've probably noticed it's not terribly well-designed for that.

The mobile site, m.openmikes.org is designed to be small, fast, and simple. It does one thing - shows you listings within 10 miles of a zip code, city, or address, on any given day.

Click on a club in the resulting list to see the time, address, phone number, web site, and any comments on the night.

That's it. Just what you want, 90% of the time. Let me know what else you'd really like it to do.

Want to try something new?

There's a new feature in the works -- a new (hopefully better, certainly more fun) way to search for open mikes near you.

Just enter your location -- could be just a city, could be a full address -- and get a Google map of the area, with upcoming open mikes highlighted. You can zoom in and out, drag the map around to look at other areas, and pick what upcoming days you want to see. The map will update automatically.

Want to see just open mikes really close to you tomorrow night? Easy. Everything in the next seven days in a wider area? Also easy. Click on any of the markers, or the club names down the right-hand side, to show a bit more detail about each night. Click on the details to take you to the full listing for that open mike.

Feedback is very welcome on this; as is your understanding that this is brand-new, not-yet-thoroughly test code.

Go here to try out the new search. And head over here to let me know what you think.

You can now delete your photos

You know those photos you've added to listings on openmikes.org? If you decide one's got to go -- it's an ad for a long-past featured performer, or your drummer didn't approve that particular likeness for public display -- you can just head to your profile page, scan the "Your Photos" list down the left side, and click the little [X] next to that particular photo.

You can't "undelete", so be careful. Of course, you can always just upload the picture again.

Editing Open Mikes

Easily the most-requested feature on openmikes.org -- "how can I edit my listings?" Short answer until now: you can't. Leave a comment, and I edit them.

New longer answer -- if it's really yours, and you're logged in, you can edit parts of the listing. See the help page on editing for details.

You can't delete comments, yet -- you'll eventually be able to delete your own, but you'll never be allowed to delete others'. And you can't yet change, say, a weekly open mike to monthly, etc. -- that's still on the drop-me-a-line list.

Feedback is welcome, as ever.

Photos, rev 2

Remember the whole add-your-open-mike-photos-to-Flickr thing? Yeah, done with that.

A brief delay before photos appear? Fine. Two weeks later and user photos still aren't viewable? No thanks. I'm a fan of Flickr in general, and if you're keeping all your photos there, it makes sense. But for our purposes here, it's just a lousy match.

So, I've installed my old friend Gallery, tied things in a bit in code, and now you can add your photos to an Open Mike listing immediately, no delays, no approval process, etc. You do need to be registered and logged in to openmikes.org, but that takes a few seconds.

See the Mocha Moo listing for an example of this feature in action. And remember, as with comments, submissions, etc. -- this is open to anyone. You don't have to be the host, the club owner, etc.

Add your photos to open mike listings

openmikes.org has a new feature -- you can add photos to any listing via flickr.

You'll need a flickr ID or a Yahoo ID to upload photos, but that's it. When you're viewing any listing, just click the "Add your photos" link, login to flickr, and upload an image. We'll take care of tagging it so that it appears alongside the correct listing.

Want to do it manually, or add tags to existing photos so they appear along with the open mike listing?  Just add "openmike" (no quotes) and the keyword for that listing as tags.  For example, the Art Land Bar listing is located at:

    http://openmikes.org/listings/artlandbar

The part after "listings/" -- "artlandbar" in this case -- is the additional tag you'll need. Just check the address while viewing any open mike night, you'll see the keyword in the same place each time. After any flickr review period (as often happens with new accounts there), your pictures will automatically be accessible from that listing. Note that only the most-recent 5 pictures will be shown as thumbnails with the listing; all the rest are a click away.

Update: canned this feature. Just didn't work out well, and a simpler solution is now in place.

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