If you're not new to the site, you may be asking yourself why you're now being asked to search by location. Great question! The short answer: it was a little too easy to hop into whatever local online meeting anywhere in the US and Canada was happening next. That meant meetings sometimes getting more people than they're used to handling, creating unintentional disruption to the experience for the regular participants. And the problem was growing as more people used the site.
So now you start by entering a location. It defaults to searching a 100 mile (or km) distance radius for that location. After that, you can use the filters like you always have, but a location is ALWAYS required. Many in the audience will note "but anyone can still search any location and join local online meetings there!" and they would be correct. The point is: that now takes concious effort rather than it being default behavior. And don't worry, the site remembers your last location searched--even between visits--so if you tend to join meetings around a given location (like your city or state/province) you won't have to be searching often. The next meetings starting in the location searched will be at the top of the list, as always. Don't forget each meeting page has a convenient Add to Calendar button!
This was a growing problem with people learning about the site just from word-of-mouth. Imagine if suddenly there were a LOT MORE people using it? And hmmm, it's probably just a total coincidence that the site has taken on SMART Recovery brand colors. To be continued....
Travellers rejoice, SMARTfinder now automatically detects that your device has changed timezones since you last visited... whether you travelled by train, plane, or automobile.
Users visiting the site from Canada should now find all meeting distances calculated and shown in kilometers. Please leave feedback if it is not working for you, or if you are seeing "km" unexpectedly.
A completely redesigned (mobile-friendly!) SMARTfinder with support for in-person meetings, searching by location, filtering on tags, and more! Apologies to Canadians for showing distance in miles... support for kilometers is coming soon!
Highlights include:
Highlights include:
Highlights include: