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Why do event sites suck?

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Re: Why do event sites suck?

#41

Post by joe_the_user »

thetrumanshow wrote: post #38
neilk wrote: post #36

I used to work for Upcoming.org. Yes I know about the location bug and way more besides. I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do about it any more. You're missing the bigger picture. Forget about tight calendar integration and blah blah, that's a nice to have, and reasonably easy compared to the bigger problems. Event sites suck because they never have most of the events you want to go to. And without some fundamentally…

Yes neilk, awesome. Let me also add... I am not convinced that very many people care about discovering new events in the first place, at least not events that don't have an immediate impact on one's social status. People learn about most events from their friends or their existing communities. This should not seem strange because people become friends with one another (or join communities) through having aligned inte…

I am not convinced that very many people care about discovering new events in the first place, at least not events that don't have an immediate impact on one's social status.

Now that seems like a rather gross generalization... Meetup.com is a fairly large and somewhat successful site based on events drawing on strangers (There are 66,241 Meetup Groups around the world meeting about 22,993 interests). Maybe you just don't find these people high enough status?

Of course, this doesn't mean that the other problems of an event site are easy to solve. Meetup does generate quite an excess of emails but I put up with them since I find of the groups interesting.

Re: Why do event sites suck?

#43

Post by kareemk »

fizx wrote: post #13
byoung2 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's definitely a good idea...the hurdle you would face is getting the data. Maybe the existing event sites thought of spidering data but were unsuccessful. How would you do it differently?

The event-scraping problem has motivated a year of technology development on my part. Parsley, Parselets, date_range, csvget, SelectorGadget, and a bunch of unreleased niftiness. I've mostly moved on from the problem, but would be happy to talk to anyone who's interested, share my experience, etc.

I'm also interested and tackling the problem myself. Contact me at kkouddous at gmail - would love to share best practices.

Re: Why do event sites suck?

#44

Post by peoplerock »

dahius wrote: post #42

We are working on this problem! Coming soon :) http://activity.fm

Sorry. Not finding it inviting to see on your home page only a logo and "Sign up for the launch to be aware!"

You expect me to provide any sort of email - with no statement of company mission, target audience, benefits claimed?

Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect any email addresses.

Re: Why do event sites suck?

#45

Post by dahius »

peoplerock wrote: post #44
dahius wrote: post #42

We are working on this problem! Coming soon :) http://activity.fm

Sorry. Not finding it inviting to see on your home page only a logo and "Sign up for the launch to be aware!" You expect me to provide any sort of email - with no statement of company mission, target audience, benefits claimed? Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect any email addresses.

Thanks for your comment! We haven't expected that visitors may feel in the way which you pointed out. We will fix the misunderstandings and get the beta as soon as possible.

Re: Why do event sites suck?

#46

Post by saliem »

matthew-wegner wrote: post #37

I have an iPhone. It knows where I am. I would definitely swing by random bar meet-ups if my iPhone told me there was one that matched my interests going down right now , four miles away. Also, when I run my own event--via evite or whatever--for god's sake, I want to be able to mass-SMS my attendee list with a single click. It's impossible to broadcast last minute changes except via text message or phone call.

I'm surprised that upcoming et al haven't done this yet. I might expect this from Yelp, but they released an iphone application and it didn't even include their events section.

Re: Why do event sites suck?

#47

Post by marram »

whalliburton wrote: post #32
marram wrote: post #29

Have you see http://www.thesponty.com ? (disclaimer: I'm co-founder) It's has elements of Twitter, but is built specifically for casual social events. Sponty gives users a way to broadcast their social intentions, like "Lunch in Harvard Square", where all their friends are implicitly invited. In addition, Sponty tries to answer two questions: 1. What are my friends doing today? obviously this doesn't work right away…

Nice. Any chance for an API?

We have a json API that we're using to implement an iPhone version. Open up Charles (an HTTP proxy/monitor) when using Sponty, the web interface almost directly uses the API as well.

Re: Why do event sites suck?

#48

Post by marram »

thetrumanshow wrote: post #38
neilk wrote: post #36

I used to work for Upcoming.org. Yes I know about the location bug and way more besides. I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do about it any more. You're missing the bigger picture. Forget about tight calendar integration and blah blah, that's a nice to have, and reasonably easy compared to the bigger problems. Event sites suck because they never have most of the events you want to go to. And without some fundamentally…

Yes neilk, awesome. Let me also add... I am not convinced that very many people care about discovering new events in the first place, at least not events that don't have an immediate impact on one's social status. People learn about most events from their friends or their existing communities. This should not seem strange because people become friends with one another (or join communities) through having aligned inte…

"""I am not convinced that very many people care about discovering new events in the first place, at least not events that don't have an immediate impact on one's social status."""

My definition of an event is: A social gathering of my friends, or friends of friends. I don't care about random trivia nights, but I might check them out if my immediate friends are going to them.

I believe that an "event community" is a misguided notion. Going to the same event as a perfect stranger is not a strong enough context for socialization.

Re: Why do event sites suck?

#49

Post by marram »

matthew-wegner wrote: post #37

I have an iPhone. It knows where I am. I would definitely swing by random bar meet-ups if my iPhone told me there was one that matched my interests going down right now , four miles away. Also, when I run my own event--via evite or whatever--for god's sake, I want to be able to mass-SMS my attendee list with a single click. It's impossible to broadcast last minute changes except via text message or phone call.

Sponty actually does this. When you change the details, it emails everyone. On an iPhone, email is just as good as SMS. People compulsively check their email on their iPhones.

Re: Why do event sites suck?

#50

Post by neilk »

thetrumanshow wrote: post #38
neilk wrote: post #36

I used to work for Upcoming.org. Yes I know about the location bug and way more besides. I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do about it any more. You're missing the bigger picture. Forget about tight calendar integration and blah blah, that's a nice to have, and reasonably easy compared to the bigger problems. Event sites suck because they never have most of the events you want to go to. And without some fundamentally…

Yes neilk, awesome. Let me also add... I am not convinced that very many people care about discovering new events in the first place, at least not events that don't have an immediate impact on one's social status. People learn about most events from their friends or their existing communities. This should not seem strange because people become friends with one another (or join communities) through having aligned inte…

Your first bullet point hits the nail on the head. Yes, this is the sad reality of many event-related sites today. There are some who avoid it by being super-exclusive and private, but that's another story.

I will disagree about the calendaring thing. Perhaps my friends are all overscheduled Bay Area people but we do use calendars outside of work. Furthermore, promoters and venue owners do have to use something like a calendar tool, eventually, and that is a potential gateway to grabbing good event data and republishing it. I don't know of anyone that's courting this side of the market well. Offering these people the carrot of better tools plus the even tastier carrot of automatic connections with fans, syndication, promotion, might work.

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