Web hosting firm helps motorists swap service station food for hearty pub fare
Phil Ronan won a cash prize and and the use of a virtual server for a year when he was announced as the winner of Manchester Web hosting company 34SP.com’s “First Ever Pub Mashup Competition”. 34SP.com challenged participants to create a mashup, a single integrated web application combining data or functionality from two or more sources, that had “anything at all to do with pubs”. Entries were judged on the criteria of originality, functionality, robustness, something called the “betterment of the greater pub community”, and whether or not they were fun and engaging to use.
Mr Ronan’s winning program was “Pubstop”, a web-based navigation tool which will find any of Britain’s top 200 pubs (as picked by the Guardian newspaper and published on their website) that are close to a motor route of your choosing. Drivers simply enter their point of origin and their destination, and Pubstop will calculate the route and find any of the award-winning pubs handy to their journey. Drivers can even re-calculate their driving directions to route the journey past one of the pubs at the click of a button, allowing the trip to be broken up with a pit stop for a quick pint or a pub meal, a tempting alternative to an overpriced pack of limp service station sandwiches. Mr Ronan’s entry was judged the winner of the First Ever Pub Mashup Competition by an expert judging panel made up of 34SP.com employees who enjoy going to pubs, and who are all undoubtedly authorities on all things related to public houses. The victorious Mr Ronan takes home 150 pounds in cash and a year’s worth of virtual private server hosting from 34SP.com.
A high level of interest in the web hosting firm’s challenge meant Mr Ronan’s entry faced stiff competition from a number of other submissions. Runners-up in the First Ever Pub Mashup Competition included Keane Ingram’s entry “The Sam Smith’s Challenge”, a map directing budget-conscious drinkers to all of the cheap and charming but elusive Sam Smith’s pubs in London, and Ollie O’Brien’s “A Map of UK Scenicness… and Pubs”, a program that combines scenicness data from MySociety with OpenStreetMap’s road map and its known pub locations. Stuart Melling, the co-founder of 34SP.com, said that deciding on a winner had been a difficult process, partly due to the number of entries the company received, but also “mainly due to the fact that we’d been in the pub all day, and our vision was a bit blurry.” However the panel persevered, and “in the end we feel that the best pub mashups won” he said.
And just in case there should be any concern about a program which directs people in charge of motor motor vehicles towards drinking establishments, the Pubstop web page carries a warning about the dangers of drinking and driving. While London taxi driver George Smith, the first person ever to be convicted of drunk driving, may have got away with a fine of just 25 shillings, the website warns the penalties today are a bit harsher. Those in charge of the vehicle are advised to stick to non-alcoholic drinks during their pub refreshment stops.
