A new interactive Web site encourages Ohio State students to enjoy the campus bar scene, but promises to promote responsibility by helping students spend as little money as possible and placing an emphasis on safety.
The Web site, www.beercrawler.com will launch next week and is a database listing campus area bars from 5th Avenue to Lane Avenue. Three Capital University alumni - Spencer Ludban, Nick Morelli and Bryan Pino - created the Web site to detail unique aspects of each bar, making BeerCrawler different from other bar listings.
Every possible bar detail will be available for students to view including how many pool tables, dart boards, specialty beers, drink specials and nightly entertainment, Morelli said.
Students will have the opportunity to post ratings and reviews of various bars, while social networking - such as that offered by Facebook or MySpace - will enable interaction and discussion among friends.
"By the end of the year, it should be the most interactive bar site in Columbus," Pino said. "Go on there and tell us this bar is great or awesome, we want interaction."
BeerCrawler will eventually allow students to create a "crawl" by choosing specific businesses based on the their preferences and desires, potentially saving students money by plotting a crawl around cheap drinks.
"A crawl is a series of locations tailored to price or product," Pino said. "If you want to drink dollar drinks, (BeerCrawler) will take you to a bar that has that. It can take you to a bar with heated patios in the winter."
Moreover, various interactions will promote safety and responsibility, Ludban said. Before going on a crawl, it will be required to enter times to leave a bar and go to the next.
BeerCrawler will send a text message to everyone in the group alerting them it is time to meet and go to the next bar, allowing everyone to know where they should go to feel safe, Ludban said.
When it is time to go home, the Web site will allow a local cab company to contact the student.
"The crawl ends at a certain time and the Web site will call you," Pino said. "It will call three times and if you answer, it will direct you to a cab."
"We don't want drinking and driving," Morelli said. "We want people to be safe."
In addition, the Web site will provide links and photos of groups for students struggling with drinking issues.
"If someone has a problem and is on our site, we want to make a conscientious effort to be positive," Morelli said.
More than anything else, BeerCrawler is designed to assist in "having a really good time, not spending too much money and getting home safely," Pino said.
Jeff Bennett can be reached at bennett.517@osu.edu.
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