Serving the GW Community since 1904

The GW Hatchet

AN INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SERVING THE GW COMMUNITY SINCE 1904

The GW Hatchet

Serving the GW Community since 1904

The GW Hatchet

NEWSLETTER
Sign up for our twice-weekly newsletter!

Officials name senior vice president, chief of staff
By Fiona Riley, Assistant News Editor • March 26, 2024

Party-goers reconnect through new website

Forgot to ask the girl you spent an hour talking up at that Ivory Tower party for her number?

Two former Stanford University students created a GW-exclusive website to potentially reconnect you with that Saturday night flame by having students electronically check into the parties and clubs they visit to find other guests and their Facebook pages.

WhoWentOut.com allows users to log in through Facebook the day of an event, before a party even begins.

“I felt like there wasn’t a good way to connect with people at the same party,” CEO Dan Berenholtz said. “Parties are a big part of college.”

Its features include a “smile” option, similar to Facebook’s poke button. For each event, a user can smile at up to three people who also checked in. Smiles are anonymous – users only learn an individual smiled at him or her if the gesture is reciprocated.

Smiles are limited because it forces users to “be strategic” when choosing at whom to smile, GW sophomore Anthony Trifero, the website’s vice president of marketing, said.

The crimson-colored website also offers a chat feature.

Berenholtz said WhoWentOut wants to expand so users can add photos and include their pre-party plans, eventually branching out to other schools.

D.C.’s bar and nightclub scene factored into the decision to launch the website at GW, he said, adding that WhoWentOut hopes to contribute to the going-out vibe by throwing promotional parties.

The first event to hit the website, a party hosted by the Sigma Chi fraternity, saw 70 to 80 check-ins, Trifero said.

The website saw traffic from 253 users as of Sunday.

More to Discover
Donate to The GW Hatchet