Crazy idea

lukin

I've had this site up for a while (I actually posted about it here before and someone told me it was crap 'cause it didn't have a log in. I've since corrected that).
I am actually a bit nervous about showing it to experienced web developers like yourselves as you guys can be fairly heartless at times but I really need to so something with it now. I did it in my spare time so if there are loads of things wrong with it that's probably why. I haven't had time to check it in every single version of every single browser in existence so some things probably look off depending on your browser.
On the plus side there are a few things in it that I think are good. Like the gris with the reservations refreshes every 10 seconds so any new reservations made show up immediately and any deleted ones disappear. Also the booking algorithm works perfectly (I think).
I had this crazy idea that I could sell it to a chain of hotels or to sell it as a bespoke application to hotels (they all probably have their own booking software which works much better I suppose).
I am about to be made redundant in a few weeks hence my desperation.
The link is here anyway:
http://www.centralreservations.ie/

p

This seems like it's a pretty good pet project for learning, but any hotel out there will already have something much more developed to suit their needs.

By all means keep working on it as a nice little pet project but my gut feeling is that I don't think you'll have much luck selling it.

lukin

I don't really want to work anymore on it, I am kind of sick of it to be honest. I have learnt a lot doing it though but the main purpose of it was to help me get a job in web dev. (it almost worked once).
It's hard when you're working though. I might finish it off and put it for sale on eBay I spose.I haven't submitted it to any search engines or put meta tags in it though and it doesn't have a shopping cart. I own centralreservations.org as well.

randombar

Not sure if you can sell a .ie to be honest.

lukin

GaryCocs wrote: »

Not sure if you can sell a .ie to be honest.

Someone offered me €200 for the .ie way back but I turned it down. I have centralreservations.org as well (it redirects to the .ie). I'd really rather use it than sell it to be honest. It's probably not good enough but maybe somebody out there might say "yeah I could use something like that".
I just don't know who.

Eoin

GaryCocs wrote: »

Not sure if you can sell a .ie to be honest.

No, but I'm sure you could sell a business which has control of the .ie domain name - but I don't think it's too likely in this scenario.

lukin

eoin wrote: »

No, but I'm sure you could sell a business which has control of the .ie domain name - but I don't think it's too likely in this scenario.

Is that because the site is s***e or because there is a recession?:-)

Eoin

Well, I'd imagine that there are already booking websites that hook in directly to the hotels' reservation systems. Having lots of AJAX is really just a nice-to-have, but I don't know what you have that more established websites don't have.

A .org domain isn't that desirable as it's meant to be a commercial domain. You're not supposed to be able to sell .ie domain names, but I'm sure there are ways around it - e.g. transfer it to a new holder, but get paid some "admin fee".

lukin

eoin wrote:

but I don't know what you have that more established websites have.

Think you mean "don't have". The updateable grid is really the selling point (I hope). When a reservation is made it appears immediately on the grid as there is a javascript setInterval function that checks the reservations table and updates the grid by Ajax. So there is no need for a page refresh.
Also you can search by reservation id or by date.
The booking algorithm only returns free rooms. I have looked at other hotel booking sites and visually they are much better but I am not sure if their bookings process works correctly (ie I don't think it is linked in directly to the bookings the hotel is making itself by phone or at the desk).
Surely there must be something that makes my site stand out? I don't mind if people shoot it down but I worked pretty hard on it and would be gutted if it turned out to be a complete waste of time.

Eoin

Yep, typo on my behalf there.

It is a nice feature, I think competing websites would be far more likely to spend a few quid to have it implemented on their system rather than to buy a new web-application with no track record that's only at proof of concept stage. You're really talking about a difference in the UI, not really the application or data layer which are the key areas.

lukin wrote:

I have looked at other hotel booking sites and visually they are much better but I am not sure if their bookings process works correctly (ie I don't think it is linked in directly to the bookings the hotel is making itself by phone or at the desk).

I think that's definitely something you need to research so you can see exactly what you're up against.

lukin

eoin wrote: »

Yep, typo on my behalf there.

It is a nice feature, I think competing websites would be far more likely to spend a few quid to have it implemented on their system rather than to buy a new web-application with no track record that's only at proof of concept stage.

OK so is it worth going to a competing website and saying "look, I can keep your reservations updated in real-time in this way, accessible anywhere and anytime"? Or is that pie-in-the-sky?
btw I came across this hotel-booking website which is also Ajax-based but on a far more advanced level:https://www.paguna.com/
Certainly blew me away. I could probably implement something similar given time though.

Eoin

lukin wrote:

OK so is it worth going to a competing website and saying "look, I can keep your reservations updated in real-time in this way, accessible anywhere and anytime"? Or is that pie-in-the-sky?

I'm afraid that I think all you'd be offering is a different way for their existing page to behave, and I reckon an established website would have the resources to do this relatively easily.

lukin

eoin wrote: »

I'm afraid that I think all you'd be offering is a different way for their existing page to behave, and I reckon an established website would have the resources to do this relatively easily.

That's disappointing after all my hard work but it hasn't been a complete waste of time, I have learnt a fair bit of C#, JavaScript, SQL Server etc.
My best hope is to sell the .ie and .org domains (if I can).
I saw centralreservations.co.uk for sale for £3K sterling. It's unlikely I would get that for mine though.

Eoin

Well, I have no idea of how the competing websites integrate with hotels, so check that out first.

lukin

eoin wrote: »

Well, I have no idea of how the competing websites integrate with hotels, so check that out first.

Aye, I'll do that thanks.