By Jordan Imlah
Like many students at BYU, Rich Millar and Trent Ostler wanted to find something to do for fun, and like many students they couldn”t always find out everything happening in the area. Unlike many students, they actually did something about this dilemma.
UtahValleyFun.com, a free Web site that brings news about dances, parties, concerts and date ideas, among many other things, was initially created in August 2006, but started in March 2007 with a lot of popularity among students, said Millar, co-creator of the site and BYU graduate student pursuing a masters in public health.
“Rich and I had been thinking about making our mark in the world last summer,” said Ostler, co-creator of the site and BYU bioinformatics and Russian graduate, currently working at Harvard University. “We figured we could use the Internet to get experience. I was getting into Web programming and Rich was pursuing a business minor at the time. We felt like we could use our experience to at least do something cool.”
The co-creators were trying to find a source of information listing activities for the valley, but there wasn”t one that brought it all together, Millar said.
“Both Utah natives, we thought of the idea of centralizing the cool things to do in the valley into one Web site,” Ostler said in an e-mail. “There were a lot of different sites that had bits of information about this or that, but there wasn”t a single Web site that you could go to and find out everything – so we decided to create it.”
Measures were taken to make it as easy as possible to access information on the Web site, Millar said.
“Even if someone has no idea what to do you can get ideas on almost everything there,” he said
Sections divide the Web site into indoor, outdoor and seasonal along with a calendar of events for current activities, he said. A portion was just added devoted to dating ideas broken down into sections such as adventurous, romantic, inexpensive/free or group dating ideas.
“What makes this Web site unique is that it allows anyone to post their own events,” Ostler said. “For example, if you are throwing a party and want to get the word out, you just hop online and post it on our calendar of events. That is what UtahValleyFun.com is all about – helping students find fun things to do.”
Ostler and Millar said they hope that once everyone knows about the Web site, viewers will be able to help each other.
“We rely on students to keep us up to date on what”s going on and to let us know if something on our Web site is outdated,” Millar said. “But we are also constantly rechecking links, listening to our friends, searching the Internet and getting word-of-mouth information to keep our Web site up-to-date.”
Hopes are running high for this site and both creators are planning to continue with it for as long as possible, he said.
“We want it be the ”go-to site” for people in Utah Valley looking for things to do,” Ostler said. “Because it is so specific in scope, we feel like it has a lot of potential to be a great resource.”
