Venue Search Has Been Renewed
Hello.
We’ve renewed the venue search functionality. About six months after the limited functionality we announced last October, we’ve replaced the database and search engine, making it more useful than before.
What’s New
Search for venues without check-in history
During the limited functionality, only venues with past check-in history could be searched. Now you can search for venues that have never been checked in to.
Search for distant venues
Previously, you could only search for venues near your current location. Now you can search for venues far away as well. This is useful when you want to record a check-in from a trip after the fact. This was a long-requested feature and a challenge even before the limited functionality.
Improved search accuracy
We’ve rebuilt the search engine to better handle variations in venue names. For example, different ways of writing “standing bar” in Japanese (立ち飲み, 立飲み, 立ち呑み, 立呑み) will now return proper results. We’ll continue to improve search accuracy going forward.
Database Changes
As part of this renewal, we’ve switched to a new venue database. Along with this, the venues available for search have changed:
- Venues not suited for sharing: Entries such as “Home” or generic location names like district or city names, as well as non-dining locations like parks, are no longer searchable.
- Merging duplicates: Duplicate venues have been merged into one.
Venues linked to existing check-ins will continue to be displayed as before. However, venues that no longer exist in the source data will not be displayed.
Check-in History Migration
Of the 27,907 venues that had been used in past check-ins, 98.4% were successfully migrated to the new database.
| Category | Count | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Migrated directly | 27,325 | 97.9% |
| Migrated by matching name and location | 126 | 0.5% |
| Total migrated | 27,451 | 98.4% |
| Could not be migrated | 456 | 1.6% |
The 456 venues that could not be migrated include entries such as “Home” or municipality-name-only registrations, where no corresponding venue existed in the new database.
The migration began around 18:00 on May 3 and was completed around 15:00 on May 5. During the migration period, some previously checked-in venues did not display their names correctly. This issue has now been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Thank you for your continued support of Sakenowa.