Color checking

We’re now checking each brewvu for the most prevalent color in each vu. These colors are being stored in the database along side the images so we now can do some simple color searching.

colorcheckers

Beside each image (or beneath if you’re on mobile), you’ll see a simple table showing colors and their #hex numbers. You’ll also see percentages. The percentage for each color is simply showing the percent of that color’s presence in each brewvu based on pixels. It’s simultaneously complicated and simple.

colors

You can click the image (or the #hex number) and view other brewvus in our database that share that color, sorted by highest percentage. It works fairly well for finding similarily colored beers like this search for #a84818

And it also works well to just find cool brewvus with a certain color in them, like this really bright shade of blue.

This, like everything else here is a work in progress. Let us know if you can think of something here we can tweak or alter to make it work better.

Note: we’re slowly scanning all brewvus. I think as of this writing we still have a few thousand to work through.

New brewvu

We’ve updated the design of brewvu and in doing so, probably sped up page loading by 50 to 100%.

The older version was loading a lot of javascript that controlled how the images sized and sorted themselves into order depending on the screen size. Thanks to some updated libraries and code, this version does that part a lot faster.

The new version is much much better at being responsive for mobile devices and different screen sizes.

We’ve also slipped a new search page into the site mix. Here’s a search for Pale Ale, to make you thirstier.

Twitter cards

We’ve implemented “twitter cards” which allows twitter to display an image/context whenever one of our urls is shown on the main site. It appears that the card data is not sent to their api yet, so this isn’t working in non-official twitter clients. But I would expect that they will open this up soon.

So the deal is, you can now post from brewvu or email brewvu your beer pictures and they will appear on the main twitter clients and the offical website just like instagram used to.

Example of drilling down on the details for a tweet below.

And this is what happens when you click “view picture” in your feed (not much different than the other image).

Enjoy!

New random daily tweet

We just wrote a new daily tweet feature that supposedly will select a random brewvu from the day before and tweet that out from the official brewvu twitter account.

The code for this feature was written after three double IPAs and it has not been tested. No one is sure if it will work or not.

Seriously, there’s no telling. It’s queued up to go every day at 1:22 pm. But we’re not really sure if that is east coast or west coast time. This is crazy. You guys get ready!

First to 200 vus

Hey, look! I won!

First to Two Hundred vus!

ENHANCE!

Proof is in the vu

FYI: the only way I am able to get higher vus of my brewvus is because I use the email a brewvu and add a brewvu options. These two options store the original picture with brewvu first and your tweet ends up with a link directly to the image. You can use any and all methods, but these two methods require people viewing your brewvu to come to this site to see the actual image (instead of twitter, instagram or others).

Best of brewvu: July 2012

Ok, this post is a bit late. But the award for Best of brewvu: July 2012 is a tie.

@brewvana and @jheath shared the title.

@brewvana's Photo

@brewvana’s winning brewvu

@jheath's brewvu

@jheath’s winning brewvu

Here’s the Best of brewvu for July 2012. The prize that @brewvana and @jheath won is the pride that they feel in their hearts when they wake up and realize that it is a new day and there is beer to be consumed. Good job guys!

Brewvu feeds you

We’ve added rss feeds for the whole brewvu.com site and individual users. Even though rss feeds aren’t that widely used anymore, there are still useful reasons to have feeds available. You could use a widget to add your brewvus to the sidebar of your blog. Or if you just like looking at beer pictures, you could add the main site rss feed to your google reader application.

Anyway, you can find the rss feeds for each user on their own user page. Just look for the little orange icon and click it.

Look for the little orange icons for site rss feeds.

Also, the rss feed for the main site is at the bottom of any page with brewvus on it.

If you have a wordpress blog and you want to add your brewvus to the blog. Here is a very popular rss import widget/plugin that can help you.

Post and email brewvus

We’ve added two new ways to add brewvus to the site.

tweet tweetYou’ve always been able to tag your images via twitter with the #brewvu tag and we will go get them and archive them for you. But, now, if you are logged into the site you can now add beer pictures directly to brewvu.com and we will save them for you and send the link and your status/comments directly through your twitter account.

You can find a white “Add brewvu” button at the top and bottom of any non-blog brewvu.com page.

Once you are logged in to brewvu.com with your twitter credentials, we also give you the option to add your email address to your account. We are not using your email to send you updates or newsletters. We need the email address in order to validate any email that you might send to us. You can read more about the “email a brewvu” process and you can start using this feature as soon as you have updated your email in your account settings.

You can continue to use the twitter tagging options, but these other two “add a brewvu” functions will send a short link to your twitter followers that directs them straight to your brewvu and it will in turn get more “vus” on your photo.

Brewvu Profile

brewvu.com twitter profileIf you want your twitter profile information to be updated on your brewvu.com profile page. Simply login at the top right of any page with the twitter login button (or go here).

Once you login, the site will automatically capture your profile information, profile picture and it will start displaying it on your profile page. If you change any of that information at twitter, it will not automatically change here but it will update upon your next login (logout -> login will refresh any twitter profile info here at brewvu.com).

Hashtag Launch

brewvu sketchWe’ve officially started scanning twitter for the #brewvu hashtag instead of the #craftbeer hashtag.

We’ve also started scanning for Camera+ photos and we’ve fixed a small bug that was keeping twitpic photos from showing up here.

We removed all voting and views (vus) from current images tagged #craftbeer but we are leaving these images up for the time being so that the site will have content. Feel free to check out the 3,000+ brewvus we’ve already collected.

Feel free to start using #brewvu and spreading the word. We’re still in a beta stage at this point and we’re still adding features to the site, so don’t be surprised if you see a bug or two.