It is Friday night in Provo. What is there to do? Call the theaters. Busy. Try again. Busy. Stomach growls, 'I want food.'
The internet is not only a window to the world, but it is now an operative tool in planning dates and nights out in Utah County.
The Utah Update, utahupdate.com, originated by Randy Davis, a senior English major from Escondido, California, and Mike Rasmussen, a senior computer science major from Philadelphia, provides Utah County residents current information on movies, dining, the arts, sports, music and other weekend activities.
'Our idea about the website is someone can go there and plan everything they want for a date or a night out,' Rasmussen said.
'We've created an interactive local entertainment news,' Davis said.
The Utah Update originally was intended to solve the problem of busy phone lines at the movie theaters. With a few clicks of the mouse, an internet patron can not only learn the show times at local theaters, but can find out who's in the movies, who directed the movies, when the movies were released and how the movie was rated by the critics.
According to Davis, who is in charge of the business aspect of the partnership, the page is connected to a movie database that can even connect the user to the movie's homepage where he or she can download a movie clip.
Since January of 1996 when Davis and Rasmussen first began scheming, they have extended the service to Salt Lake City residents and incorporated the help of University of Utah marketing graduate Charles Geltz to work with advertisers in the Salt Lake Area.
Davis and Rasmussen solicit local restaurants for advertising. Advertising in Provo on the Utah Update runs between $70 to $100 a month. In Salt Lake ads run between $150 to $300 a month. Advertising includes internet exposure as well as a homepage designed by Rasmussen. Some ads include coupons and The Station Gourmet Pizzeria in Provo offers a free lunch to the winner of their e-mail drawing.
'There's a natural tie in for going to a movie and the going to dinner,' Geltz said.
Davis said that the Utah Update gets roughly 100,000 hits per month. A hit is every time a user clicks on a file in the website