February 23, 2012
(Eye)Spy is a new event-tracking application aimed to help college students find fun things to do in their area. The site was created by recent graduates Nicholas Mathews, 23, and Abhay Vatsa, 22. The two young men are calling their site a “Campus Live for social events”. It uses the GPS location of the user, which is pulled from the web browser or smartphone, and finds events and activities for the user to choose from.
Like many entrepreneurial ventures, this idea came about from problems identified in their own college experience. “It’s a problem. it’s really is.” Mathews explains. “It’s Friday night. You’re with your friends, and you don’t know what’s going on. Meanwhile, there are a lot of really great events going on.” The target audience is ideal for this type of service.
With all the stress that comes along with attending classes and studying for tests, not to mention all the students who are also working full or part time, students are often looking for a way to blow off some steam.
“We want students to know that they don’t have to sit in their dorm rooms and just drink, awkwardly waiting for someone to tell them about a frat party. . . No one wants to be bored,” Mathews said. “Our app’s goal is to make it so that people don’t have to be bored anymore.”
The app is scheduled to launch in early September, but the website function is already available for beta testing. The listed events are submitted by users and local business owners, and then organized based on GPS location. “With user submitted events, if there is a pick-up soccer game you want to post, you can ask people to ‘come join us,’” explained Mathews.
The service is also great for shy students, looking for the full college party experience, but who might not normally have access to party information. “We don’t want to brand it as a party finder, but that is a great use for it,” said Mathews. “It can be so much more than a party finder,” Vatsa confirmed.
When users log on to the site or mobile application, the program automatically searches for events based on current GPS location. It then displays all the local remaining events for the day, as well as upcoming events.
Although it is a bit early to judge, the service is already quite promising. “Honestly, I was a little skeptical at first. I thought it was a great idea, but it’s a lot of work,” offered Ben Blieden, a friend who tested the site. “It’s really coming together now. I fully expect it to go very well when they launch. I have already talked to at least a dozen freshmen who have all said they are going to use it.”