TheOpeningHours.co.uk - Find Out When it Closes

It’s Sunday, a lazy Sunday, but at some point, you decide to gather yourself out of bed and head out to the store only to find that you missed opening hours by five minutes. This is a typical quandary afflicting folks all over the world. It’s a common a tourist trap—you arrive expecting 24 hour grocery stores and shopping galore, but that doesn’t happen. What to do? If you’re in the UK, check out The Opening Hours, a website dedicated to informing you when things close. You can search by category (shopping, community, going out, etc). Or search by location. It also functions as a social network so you can sign up, invite friends, write reviews and read the latest news. Soon to come, will be a European version.

“TheOpeningHours.co.uk was founded in May 2008 by a young Internet entrepreneur, Ludovic Donzé, with the valuable help of Anis Safine. This project is self-funded.

The website was founded after having difficulties to find the opening hours for the local shops. Realising that most people had the same difficulties, Ludovic decided to launch a website helping visitors to easily find the opening hours for businesses in their area.”

TheOpeningHours is a great idea in that it provides useful information while making it an interactive community so users return and contribute rather than use it as a simple reference page.

Will TheOpeningHours go stateside? Does the social networking component make users more apt to visit and contribute to the site? How will the site generate revenue for expansion?