LateNightShots is an invite-only social networking site dedicated to Washington DC nightlife.
Since launching a beta version in August 2006, the site now has over 10,000 members. LateNightShots adheres to a strict invite-only policy - members may only join the site after being recommended by an existing member.
LateNightShots requires members to choose at least five of their favorite bars or clubs and 5 of their favorite restaurants upon registering. After registration, members may then view the most popular bars in Washington DC, profile pages for the members who go to those bars, and pictures, videos and articles from bars or parties.
Other features include a comprehensive list of happy hours in the city, neighborhood maps, event planning functionality, a dating component, the ability to send drinks to friends that can be redeemed at local bars, “spotting” friends at bars, and message boards.
With general social networking style sites now at saturation point, narrowly focused niche sites are really the last untapped market. We recently covered OurFaves, a user generated geospecific review site and Angling Master, a social network for recreational fisherman. LateNightShots sits somewhere between the two.
There has been some coverage of the site elsewhere that suggested it was nothing more than an exclusive Republican white boy hangout space (or words to that affect). I couldn’t see it. Whilst there may be members with a strong political bent it’s not immediately evident in the member areas. There is a richness of member submitted content, reviews and discussion that would suggest an appeal to a much broader church, the only limitation being that you live in Washington DC, enjoy going out at night and are impartial to the occasional alcoholic beverage.
LateNightShots’ owner Sugar Media Group plans to expand the site in to New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Charlotte, Dallas and Charlottesville later this year.
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I’ve been a registered on the system for about 6 months, and can attest that it is has a profound influence on the social dynamics within D.C. The user community is a virtual who’s who’s of the young party set in D.C. User supplied content makes the site lethally good. I have seen a number of nice enhancements over the past 6 months, and expect some structural enhancements to handle the grow and increase volume on the site. Keeping the private, invite-only nature of the site will be critical however as much of what happens within the site is not fit for public consumption.
Thats a cool idea for a “yet another social networking site”.
But i doubt this will be successful across cities.
That screenshot reminds me of bug tracking software layouts like Mantis.
But hey, if it’s working out, congrats.
I was wondering if there was any way of getting an invitation. I just recently graduated from Virginia Tech and I know a lot of my closer friends have moved there. Based on the slim description, this could be a great way to learn the city upon first arrival. Let me know if you wouldn’t mind inviting me to the system. I also have strong connections with some of the other systems that they are thinking of launching, such as NYC, Charlotte, and Atlanta. Thanks for the help.
I highly recommend the message boards.
Rumor has it that Michael Arrington is a real Houdini Remix aficionado.
i might send you an invite just to see you get slammed on the forums for going to virginia tech. you have no clue… TURBO
Are you guys talking about the forums on this site? Sorry, I haven’t used that section of the website yet and not sure how others have received invitations in the past. Sorry for sounding like a newbie, but the only aspect of this site I’ve used to date is just reading up on the stories. Thanks for the help (and why would I get slammed for going to Tech?)
How is this any different from sites like http://www.minglenow.com and http://www.heyletsgo.com. Doesnt look like anything new or exciting to me.
“Doesnt look like anything new or exciting to me.”
I don’t think anyone who uses LNS particularly cares if it’s revolutionary or not. All I know is that people in DC are massively addicted to the site.
In my experience, MingleNow and especially HeyLetsGo are what people who don’t actually go out to bars and socialize think a site for people who go out to bars and socialize should be like.
I think Wonkette’s coverage sums up this site quite nicely. http://www.wonkette.com/politics/douchebags/
I thought Wonkette went to work for Time?
I like the idea of there being something that links people who like to go out, but the crowd would count big time for me. No speed dating vibe, or anything like that. I go out all the time and have lots of friends but it’d be cool to find new places with the kind of crowd we like to roll with. It gets boring to be in the same scene over and over again.
Check out Chug’d!
Sounds like a great idea. Can someone get a couple more screenshots up here? I also like PartyGPS.com
I live in DC: this is a site for Republican staffers living off their parents’ money who never set foot out of Georgetown if they can help it. Which is fine — I’d prefer that they not come to the parts of the city I frequent. But you really should read up on Wonkette’s Last Week’s Shots feature to see just how clueless, sexist and occasionally racist the average LNSer seems to be. The userbase is no prize pig, and the elitism and misogyny that run throughout it mean that it’ll never grow beyond a narrow segment of the DC social scene. Some will use it religiously and everyone else will avoid it like the plague.
I’d be very surprised if it succeeds in other towns where the creators don’t have personal networks to leverage… Almost as surprised as I am to see it covered on TechCrunch. Surely there are more interesting projects from more interesting startups out there.
10,000 memebers? why the f*ck is techcrunch writing about this. There are literally thousands of forums with more members than this. Lame.
“10,000 memebers? why the f*ck is techcrunch writing about this. There are literally thousands of forums with more members than this. Lame.”
According to Alexa, this site has more pageviews than 95% of the other sites that TechCrunch reviews, and more than every other site reviewed that’s currently on the front page, not to mention the fact that they appear to be live in only one city. Strikes me as a relevant company to profile.
Alexa is generally full of crap, and pageviews is a easily gamed number, most advertisers stopped buying pageviews and started buying uniques in 2000, thats generally the number that counts, and 10,000 uniques, while admirable doesn’t’ strike me as that impressive and worthy of a techcrunch feature, although I’m probably grossly overvaluing the hurdle used to make a techcrunch feature.
“According to Alexa, this site has more pageviews than 95% of the other sites that TechCrunch reviews,”
Please back that up, funny smelling statement to me.
“and more than every other site reviewed that’s currently on the front page”
not counting bebo I’m assuming. Plus the other sites featured are there because they have a unique angle or unique product, not a cookie-cutter forum board, and a passing association with drinking. Strikes me there’s nothing “tech” or “crunchy” about this website.
Points taken, but “Alexa is generally full of crap, and pageviews is a easily gamed number” - actually it’s the uniques that’s easily gamed, not the pageviews.
actually its both. uniques can be marketing churn and the pageviews can be controlled by how you build your site (ie. decreasing the number of posts shown per page on a thread will increase the number of pageviews needed to read through a thread). in general gaming pageviews is a lot cheaper than gaming uniques. not saying these guys are doing that, and because its a closed system most likely not.
I’m not buying the contention that a lot of these “rich boy republicans” have alexa installed on their computers. Being in one city, 28k on Alexa seems fairly legit to me, but spreading to other cities does seem like it could be difficult considering that it sounds like it was started by a couple of DC party boys.
The site is not for everyone, but there is certainly a concept that is being perfected by LNS/Sugar Media gang that can lead to a sustainable technology-based venture within D.C. and in a dozen or so socially engaged cities. It may not be for everyone. However, the niche it serves can drive significant growth.
Also, being negatively cited by Wonkette in D.C. is an honor these days, the current editoral staff would be hard pressed to run a high school newspaper.
Might someone be able to send me an invite? I’m very interested in this concept and would love to take a look inside.
Lots of thanks in advance!
tim AT nightbee DOT nl
I am a member of Late Night Shots. Let me just say that this review is pretty much useless. There are a number of points made that I could quibble with but I’ll just point out that the 10,000+ membership number is absurd. If you spent longer then 5 minutes inside the site you’d realize there are literally hundreds, if not thousands of fake profiles (many of which are hysterical by the way) created by other users. Unless I am mistaken and Simon Birch and Monica Lewinsky are really members.