Keep It Simple - Make It Simpler

The Vooruit Kunstcentrum in Ghent (Belgium), Flanders' biggest art center, has got a brand new web site. And it's Web2.0-ish. A lot. It's only in Dutch at this moment, but the English version is on the conveyor belt. We launched on April 20Th 2007, after 3 months of intense development - 100% in Ruby On Rails - and too many sleepless nights. (Yes, I do sleep better now, thank you for asking).

What's in the box?

A art-program browser on steroids (/productions ) + an art-lovers community cocoon (/community ). OK. Let's have a look at the features.

You can :

just have a peek :

, read the headlines,

, find a concert in April, a podium event next week or a party on May 26Th

, buy tickets,

, follow the suggestions

subscribe to the "new concerts" feed,

see what's on the menu in series like the Courtisane Festival 2007 voor kortfilm, video en nieuwe media :

or just be lazy and follow tags:

Each production (concert, theater, ..)

gets its own mini-site with a presentation of the event, articles by the Vooruit editors or external writers, ...

..,and photos, audios and videos

plus:

gets its own community area where registered members (it could be you) can recommend, vote, post short comments, tips, reviews, send pictures,

For popular events, you can see who plans to attend, or attended:

The Community :

If you want to check the community pulse, go no further than the Community area :

and

see who's the member of the week :

..or the latest 9 members

find out what members are talking about :

or the latest photos they posted :

That's all folks. We did our bit. Now it's your turn : create an account.

, and we'll create a place just for you,

where you can tell us who you are, what you like:

, and upload your pictures :

, and publish your texts (Yes, you are an author)

A useful feature: all the events you ever tagged, rated, reviewed, or tipped

.. will show up in you 'Kalender' tab :

All the people you ever tagged as friends

.. will show up in your 'Friends' tab :

And finally,

whenever you see an article, a text, an image, a video, an audio you like, just mark it :

and it will show up in you 'Favourites' tab :

The future of vooruit.be :

Following the great Google tradition, we launched in beta mode. Over the coming months, you can expect many more great features: an English version, groups, screencasts, individual users auto-blogs, and super-secret stuff I can't tell you about, (otherwise I'd have to kill you, and I don't want to do that anymore; who knows, you could become a client one day).

The Team :

As with most success stories, this project was a team effort. On the client side there was : * Eddy Naert the client voice, the graphist, the project manager and much more : if it looks good and it's useful, it's thanks to him. * A super great team of dedicated editors, who worked long hours, even on Sundays, to create the rich contents for you. If it's interesting, it's thanks to them. On the developer side, there was : * me (Alain Ravet), and Ruby on Rails: if it doesn't work, you know who to blame (hint: it's not 'Rails')