Fun Friday: Fall Planning
Panterosa suggested today's fun friday. She sent me this email:
As the 'season' starts here, I wonder how everybody decides which art shows, theater and concerts to attend. It's such a pain to crawl thru event listing in NYC, let alone US or internationally.
I have longed for an art app which can follow artists, galleries, museum, themes and so on, like the Etsy taste map
I have seen a few apps like that but I don't use any of them personally. I do use the Songkick mobile and web apps to keep track of concerts I want to see.
For a broader view of what's going on in NYC, I have long relied on NY Magazine's Fall Preview issue which does a pretty good job of this.
What do all of you do? Let us know in the comments.
Comments (Archived):
There is an App I use that aggregates all types of events in your city, Poynt (android & iOS) http://www.poynt.com or http://m.poynt.com on mobile. You can even buy tickets straight from there, and it adds the event to your smartphone calendar. Here’s a screen shot of some of the categories.
Looks interesting, and on the right track. It has bad reviews though. Your experience has been good?
Yes. There’s a new update coming up on iOS. It’s already on Android. I know them. Don’t worry about the reviews if it’s showing you the variety of Events in New York.(The bad reviews are because the product was neglected for a year, but they were recently acquired and it’s being fixed)
I know the original lead developer. He is excellent and the product was very well built.Business issues were the issue.
ah, it must be your Calgary connection 🙂
Good to know. I’ll try it. The thing is I am wary to apply time to many different apps – it means the same heavy lifting as before in having the app get to know me.
The NYT has introduced a cross platform recommendation engine http://thenextweb.com/media… that should be able to work toward what you would like.Otherwise, it comes down to someone doing heavy lifting. There is the h+ magazine (web) that combines flavors associated with transhumanism and the singularity. In the arts world, it would be a matter of getting regulars who post opinion or indepth on something within their expertise, get the sponsor/ad dollars and make it easy to understand, being able to click into whichever subject (painting, sculpt, digital, theatre…), geographical area and so on.
In this day and age we still need to do heavy lifting? Yuck!Plus, I don’t necessarily want to have my recc’s reading dependent – I do not read reviews of shows, on purpose, I want a clean slate and fresh eyes to see.
True, I didn’t mean it to be strictly revues, but those who are more on level of inspire. Otherwise, if it is all about what is playing on Broadway in NYC, it is already there.
New Season Arts – impeccably sourced digest of what’s going on.
In print or online?
online
can you send link – I am getting many hits for that
the arts are, i hope, still one area where expression of dissent is still possible.i need to look for it myself.
I’m boring. I ask my friends on Facebook 🙂
I still like going through the Times to see what’s going on. The Fall movie preview is always great
Good question and massive pain point. My methodology is hodgepoge push and pull: Time Out NY for music and theater, Bowery Presents & BAM emails for bigger shows, artcards.cc for the full listing of gallery openings, museum email lists for signal to noise, and Twitter / wishful thinking for catching good lectures or readings. Those tend to be Manhattan focused…for Brooklyn events, that’s a whole other set of emails to read and blogs to follow.The bigger issue imho is that there is a disconnect between the media we consume passively (articles, blog posts, videos, music etc) and the in-person experiences that could augment that media. Songkick does this for music, but in my ideal world, recommendations should be media agnostic, cross-platform, contextually relevant, and content specific.
I want to use a service that remembers what I do and can recommend things based on past shows, or simply my entering in my artists and locations I go. Today, next month and in a year.
Every time I use artcards.cc it annoys me that it’s not better designed. It’s for an arts crowd and it’s ugly. What’s up with that?
If only you knew how many times Panterosa has scoffed at poor design on websites! If things were prettier, more people would pay attention.
That flows from the top. If you assume most startups are engineers or business people.We took a trip to Las Vegas (first time) and went to several different casinos (not to gamble but to see whatsup).One casino, when you parked your car and walked in, well, the parking lot was a totally dull (flourescent light) buzz kill that was really depressing.From a design standpoint I immediately realized that they could make that a better experience and much more appealing. Yes, even in the parking lot the lighting and colors matter.Good design makes a difference.
I make artwork from plastic trash. Suddenly, everyone thinks the “trash” is beautiful.
Make things which are beautiful, smart, fun, and sexy – like the girl/boy you want to date.
Agreed! Should be far more visual, and have a much better UX. Though I guess that is perhaps the difference between art & design 😉
The problem with artcards and time out is curation. I go onto artcards and while it is pretty comprehensive, I’m lost at which would be a show that I would actually enjoy.
Curation of culture is incredibly subjective…Agree with @panterosa:disqus that they need to be personalized and use historic data, but manage the filter bubble risks
I’m planful about too many things — this is one I leave to serendipity.
Timely. Somewhat new to me, but blouinartinfo.com is pretty good for exhibitions and events, but not concerts. Doesn’t cover NYC, but 2 out of 3 ain’t bad.
Serendipity of following and engaging in the communities I’m interested in. It’s worked so far, though I’m sure I’m missing out I’m unsure if being exposed to everything I’d want to go to is helpful..
Best way by far
Metromix.com, and there is a gossipy print magazine someone publishes in Chicago. Forget the name of it. GO BEARS.
Disqus not posting all comments today. Sigh.
Getting caught in spam?
No, it’s not spam related.
I only caught one from Carine at 8am that I immediately cleared. Did you post via email or web? And is it yours or someone else’s? The spam dashboard is up to date.
The web came up, but were not immediate. The mobile was lost, so I went back to web to post. Waiting for the day the mobile works…
Never look for anything to do…. either someone invites me to something (I’ll say yes, almost every time)…or I drink and play Yahtzee. Works.
drinking and yahtzee….nice choice
I need to post our gambling rules. Really adds an important element
buck a point?
Do you have Family Guy Yahtzee?
BandsInTown is a pretty good app for finding concerts. It’s connected to Spotify (which is my main source for listening to music) – so it knows what artists I listen to and make concert recommendations accordingly.
Try Loudie if you have a minute. It’s similar to BIT except you can more easily track what your friends are going to + depending on your location you get access to free tix. I built it to be more social and user-friendly. Let me know what you think.https://itunes.apple.com/us…
I discovered Sosh the other day, and have found it to be pretty helpful for sorting through activities near you: http://sosh.com/
Seems like its more for food and date events. Does it have any features for concerts and art galleries?
Yes, it has a section for Theater & Shows and another for Arts. And there are also featured events every weekend, some of which are concerts.
Yeah, but its selection of events seems to be really limited.
The App of Austerity has greatly streamlined my social diary 😉
Just like Songza did for music, events are crying out for human curation or at least a very capable machine curation based on user inputs (direct or indirect). I’m sure many are trying, including Wannadoo which is starting out here in Nashville. Not quite the number of events as NYC, but an interesting company to watch as they tackle this problem. And I like the name!
I read the NY Times Fall Preview issue and New York Magazine and stick alerts in my calendar for things I want to do. I used to keep a notebook in the olden days – two years ago.We have a season subscription to the Philharmonic. I buy the tickets for things I know will be really pricey or tough to get once they open – I bought preview tkts for Betrayal back in the summer. We are members of MOMA and they send out reminders. My kids keep me up on concerts.I end up missing a lot as there is too much and I tend to now throw out paper catalogues. I have never liked the format of Time Out for any city. It’s confusing and not well organized. An easy to navigate app with options like OPEN TABLE is for restaurant reservations would be great.
Tracey, try Poynt and let me know what you think. I just counted 30 Event categories, and you can search by Performer or near you, etc…
Will do. Thank you!
at some point I should do the same for the ballet :/ slightly out of budget right now though
It’s kind of great and it’s kind of a pain. I end up having to switch a bunch of nights and sometimes have to give them away when work conflicts interfere. But i know if I don’t do it I won’t ever go. It gets cheaper every year I have the subscription that I know. I’m a lot older than you. I didn’t do it until the last four years.
I love Artsy.net for this specifically, but it doesn’t have a mobile app yet.
First time poster and Panterosa’s boyfriend here. Been reading the forum for quite a while finally took the plunge to make an account and comment!I used to be in a band before medical school and always found fun shows and events just by word of mouth. The community effect was huge in that I trusted recommendations because I knew which taste the recommender had. I would love to have a crowd sourced event app and have talked to panterosa quite a bit in coding one. Last.fm was a great website that I used to find music shows prior to it being bought out and ruined. Three years ago, i ended up at a secrete passion pit show via last.fm event recoomendations. The audioscrobbler function was the heart of last.fm. Every song I listened to was logged on posted online. there was a massive community effect. Due to that, their event recommendation feature was spot on and fantastic.Too bad we don’t have an “art scrobber” app. Where I would post where I went and what show and artist I liked. It would then taste map my preference with others and find galley shows for me to attend.A show and event aggregator website would be useful as well. Take artcards, nytimes, timeout, the museum websites and put it on one well designed east to read site.Doctor V
Welcome!
I guess he doesn’t know about us?
Ha! I’m going to have a fun time in here 🙂
“Panterosa’s boyfriend here”You pick up the restaurant tab don’t you? Because I always did.
Welcome to the bar!
I would kill for an art scrobbler
For concerts, I built Loudie for this exact reason. It’s much easier to discover concerts when you know what your friends are going to…https://itunes.apple.com/us…
i love eventgrabber.com in Orlando – but I think it’s only in Orlando for now. Essentially Pandora for events. works great!
“I have longed for an art app which can follow artists, galleries, museum, themes and so on…”This is exactly the problem our team at Stash set out to solve. We wanted to create an app that helps you stay in the know and be that cool friend who always knows what is going on right in your pocket.The Stash experience is essentially Pinterest and Instagram but focused on events. It is highly visual enabling fast discovery via a feed of events and you can save/pin/stash away events you are interested in for later. Stash is social at its core, connecting people to other people that are in the know, and venues directly with engaged consumers. We are an open platform where anyone can create and promote their events in an experience optimized for discovery on mobile. Lastly, we are long time New Yorkers creating a product specifically for New Yorkers with plans to expand to additional cities this year.Although we help surface some fun events (stash picks), users are able to cut through the noise by following others and building their own network of in the know sources. We are fairly new but our vibrant and growing niche community of event-goers have followed more than 100,000 times in the past couple of months. We also have been creating a deep social graph for each user and send out recommendations twice a week via email along with user-controlled push reminders so you never miss out on the events or sources (i.e art and theater openings) you care about most.Check out our iPhone app on the App Store here, https://appsto.re/us/s8HxK.iWe also have an adaptive website at http://www.stash.me/We love feedback and are continuing to take on investors, so please send any comments to [email protected] a great weekend and try finding some NYC fun on Stash!“Best way to find and share events” – Erick Schonfeld
there’s a new app launching (NYC focus) to tackle some of this problem. Flyer App: http://www.flyerapp.com/(disclosure – not connected at all with them other than knowing the founder…who has no idea that I posted this here)
Seems like a one stop shop for all events. Hope to check it out when it comes out.
It is definitely a huge frustration, especially because the information for theatre, dance, music etc is so dispersed and what might be good for me might not be good for you. Time Out is too hard to mine through, as are all these other “listings” sites mentioned here. I’m currently one of the beta testers for Culture Craver (www.culturecraver.com), which is solving this problem better than anything else. It has great listings, covering film, theater, music, art, dance, talks, special events, and each is given a personal score based on the critics/friends you are following. It collects all the reviews from critics and friends, and lets me bookmark (“crave”) anything I want to see. I use the iPhone version, but it is also on the web.
Interesting subtexts in this comment thread. 1) This is definitely a big-city problem that those having to drive 8 hours to see their favorite band must envy. (I’m in Los Angeles–can’t complain). 2) The Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) has been spreading on the Petri dish of social networking and shows no signs of slowing down. I realize that as a writer/app developer, this may sound out of character, but I have found that serendipity, not technology, has produced the most fulfilling results. The best food I found in Paris resulted from getting lost down an alley (okay, they call them streets) and sitting down to a table with no menus and murky, unlabeled bottles of wine. The best Lo Mein I’ve had in New York found me when I put down the Yelp! and started following my nose on 3rd Ave. Accidental art shows and late-night rock venues have both been the result of meeting strangers in pubs in the UK. Mostly, we would all do well to stop comparing ourselves to the envy-inducing photos our peer group posts on the social web. Also, the reason no app has cracked this code is because you cannot curate every opinion that exists, just those which are submitted. The shows, exhibits, concerts and restaurants are only rated by a select group of people–those who enjoy rating things. Do you always want to follow the advice of people who LOVE to give it???
The problem is that social has made us feel left out. Years back, I used social to connect with people who actually love the advice they give. These days, it’s all about who has the most badges, the most likes, ect. What I loved about social befor was that it wasn’t quantified. We actually posted and gave advice to give advice and genuine recommendations.
I totally agree with serendipity. Was invited to an opening where the host didn’t show and was a great show.My problem I hoped would be solved by a sort of taste map app which I could input things into, as well as have discovery from those links, build a profile over time.
I agree, personal big data would be interesting, and useful. But I think it’s finite. Even if you were to rate EVERYTHING you did, only your memory will remember that you gave that place a 3 instead of a 4 because the kitchen was too close to the bathroom and the margarita in a weird glass(it’s the little things). I wish I could offload ALL this info, but there is a huge breakdown when we are required to input anything. The second we do, we start editorializing.
You had Panterosa at data. Throwing in personal big data…wheh! I’ll let miss data visualization nerd answer this one.
haha, love it. How about this: A Social Vizify linked directly to your endorphin levels. “You’re happiest when you’re here.”
There’s a difference between my taste, hot tickets via press/editors, and friends reccs, but they overlap. I want the blend, I want to weight it. I want to go deeper into my interests, but not to live in my own bubble. I’m happy to explore outside my “comfort zone” of interests to find tangents from them. I like discovery and explore.Ultimately, I want not to spend huge time having to sort this out. From everyone’s comments here, this is a pain point, and several apps are working on this. I’d love comments back on those apps so I don’t have to sort through them too.Busy people with appetites for interesting content when we have downtime. A lot of engaged users waiting to show up, and often pay.
+1
I agree that the weighing is indeed key. I am slowly making my way though all these great suggestions and some of them seem to have too much information and no weighing/sorting mechanism (why should a one off talk-back have the same weight as a full run of an exhibit? This only reinforces the problem Time Out is currently presenting). Others have curated, though terribly limited listings. Some are shooting for the happy middle ground. I know it is early stages for many of these apps, and I am excited to see how they progress.
Check out Stash. We think we solved this problem by making it a democracy. If something is cool our users decide and it rises to the top. https://appsto.re/us/s8HxK.i
stash solves three macrotrends:1) FOMO (fear of missing out) by providing enough cool events 2) phone clog (too many apps) – if you download our app, you can delete ~5 others3) Facebook fatigue (look at the usage data from college-age and younger demos and see who’s using FB for core social activities. We provide a non-FB, anonymous (except for friends) social platform for people to connect to fun events, and brands to connect to fun people. And we drive those people straight to the RSVP/ecom page. Simple but compelling value prop for both consumers and businesses? That’s a winner. And I think the comments here bear that value prop out. Great discussion!
We’re releasing Flyer this month, which is an app that allows you to follow exactly what you want for events in NYC…basically “Songkick for everything”.For art you can follow artist talks, specific galleries or museums, or broad themes like contemporary art or special events. We have this granularity across 7 other categories of events like performing arts (specific theaters, genres, classical music), food (festivals, openings, beer culture), music (follow genres, bands, venues), classes & lectures and several more categories.We’re pushing out a new beta today and have nearly hit our limit on Testflight, but have room for ~15 more people…if you’re interested tweet us @flyerapp:disqus. Otherwise you’re welcome to sign up for the release at flyerapp.com.
Daybees event finder is already live and has 230 genres, with over 2 million listings. The press love it! Users love it! Dwell time and page views are exceptional. Daybees online + apps.
hi both of you 🙂
“I have longed for an art app which can follow artists, galleries, museum, themes and so on…”This is exactly the problem our team at Stash set out to solve. We wanted to create an app that helps you stay in the know and be that cool friend who always knows what is going on right in your pocket.The Stash experience is essentially Pinterest and Instagram but focused on events. It is highly visual enabling fast discovery via a feed of events and you can save/pin/stash away events you are interested in for later. Stash is social at its core, connecting people to other people that are in the know, and venues directly with engaged consumers. We are an open platform where anyone can create and promote their events in an experience optimized for discovery on mobile. Lastly, we are long time New Yorkers creating a product specifically for New Yorkers with plans to expand to additional cities this year.Although we help surface some fun events (stash picks), users are able to cut through the noise by following others and building their own network of in the know sources. We are fairly new but our vibrant and growing niche community of event-goers have followed more than 100,000 times in the past couple of months. We also have been creating a deep social graph for each user and send out recommendations twice a week via email along with user-controlled push reminders so you never miss out on the events or sources (i.e art and theater openings) you care about most.Check out our iPhone app on the App Store here, https://appsto.re/us/s8HxK.iWe also have an adaptive website athttp://www.stash.me/We love feedback, so please send any comments to [email protected] a great weekend and try finding some NYC fun on Stash!
“I have longed for an art app which can follow artists, galleries, museum, themes and so on…”This is exactly the problem our team at Stash set out to solve. We wanted to create an app that helps you stay in the know and be that cool friend who always knows what is going on right in your pocket.The Stash experience is essentially Pinterest and Instagram but focused on events. It is highly visual enabling fast discovery via a feed of events and you can save/pin/stash away events you are interested in for later. Stash is social at its core, connecting people to other people that are in the know, and venues directly with engaged consumers. We are an open platform where anyone can create and promote their events in an experience optimized for discovery on mobile. Lastly, we are long time New Yorkers creating a product specifically for New Yorkers with plans to expand to additional cities this year.Although we help surface some fun events (stash picks), users are able to cut through the noise by following others and building their own network of in the know sources. We are fairly new but our vibrant and growing niche community of event-goers have followed more than 100,000 times in the past couple of months. We also have been creating a deep social graph for each user and send out recommendations twice a week via email along with user-controlled push reminders so you never miss out on the events or sources (i.e art and theater openings) you care about most.Check out our iPhone app on the App Store here, https://appsto.re/us/s8HxK.iHave a great weekend and try finding some NYC fun on Stash!
“What do all of you do?”.I’m not located in NYC. But I go by feel on entertainment decisions. There’s nothing that will ruin fun quicker than being analytical about having fun!!!
Hi! At the risk of sounding self promotional, you should check out Culture Craver (www.culturecraver.com or https://itunes.apple.com/us…. We help you discover art, theater, film, theater, dance, etc. with help from the friends and critics you trust. The problem you described is exactly what we’re working to address.
Well played – no one can hate when you are so on topic!
I use Clear for iPhone, and Sosh.
I LOVE Clear. Having a beautiful relationship with that app.
excellent timing – as wife and I are planning a mini vaca. to nyc in a few weeks! #bookmark
oh – my comment made think disqus should parse out #bookmark hashtags and add to a bookmark panel on my dashboard.
if you want coffee, shoot me an email!
yes- just sent you a note via linkedin
I have been using Indino,it’s a love childe of a calendar and twitter. I follow the performer, venue, orevent (any one can create a feed) and it invites me as a new one isscheduled. I accept and it is in. I pick and choose what ever I want to follow,even my kid school events.Its out in Tampa right now but you can get it from the appstore and set it up for your events, orget you favorite music venue to use it then follow them.Works for me.
Diary of a working mom:Monday: piano lessonsTuesday-Thursday: 1-2 work events, help w homeworkFriday: “Frisky Netflix Friday” w husbandSa/Sun: TIRED. Usually house projects, karate, etc.When all things are well, a Saturday eve family/family bbq so the kids can run around while the parents drink wine.If a cultural outing is planned it has to be kid-friendly. That generally means word-of-mouth (which my definition includes all social media). It also has to be really easy; after running hard during the week, we’re not very eager to travel far or stand on lines, etc. It’s seldom enough that I haven’t needed an app for that
“Frisky Netflix Friday w husband”Awesome. Great line. Great post. Great Use Case.
Daybees has a ‘kids/family’ category. I know we’re a UK beta but it works! There are lots of USA events being added daily. Launching there early next year. Check out our video on youtube although there’s apps now too <http: http://www.youtube.com=“” watch?v=”e4RlqyVtYEs”>
Having a 3 month old baby has put a hold on such outings for now 🙂
mazel tov
Thanks!
I use the Newyorker app that tells me whats happening in the various categories in NYC.
Daybees is online and on app (android and iPhone). It has the largest listings in the world and, although beta, is prepping to have full USA listing by early next year. It’s an unbiased search engine, with no ads… just events…. local to global, niche to major, ticketed and unticketed. 230 genres including everything you’ve been asking for. Daybees has been rated best app by MSN, Daily Mail, The Sun, Daily Star, Sunday Mirror, Sainsbury’s and so on. It was featured on BBC TV.Daybees is working on several advances the next of which is user generated listings. Daybees lets you “Find Every Event”, then soon “List Every Event” where you can sell tickets commission free or just let people know you’re there.
<http: http://www.youtube.com=“” watch?v=”e4RlqyVtYEs”>
first let me get through the jewish holidays
Thanks again @fredwilson:disqus for posting this!It great to have feedback and see what people are using. And thanks to all who shared your sources a methods for finding events. I waited until comments were done to take the pulse, and share back the sources in a single list.Most people seem agree that finding events and shows is more difficult than necessary.Most people have trusted sources, but wish it were easier to find things, and things perhaps outside their usual route. Sources people use, besides social media and word of mouth: artsy.net, Time Out, NY Times, NY Times Fall Movie Guide + Fall Preview, NY Magazine Fall Preview, NY Magazine, New Yorker App, blouartinfo.com, artcards.cc, New Season Arts, h+ magazine, NYTimes recommendation engine, Metromix.Most seem to agree that it is a problem worth solving, and solvable, but wanted certain metrics to not just get all listings, but personalized discovery. This is key in big cities where there is a lot to choose from.Some use these apps:Songkick, Poynt, Sosh, Culturecraver, Calester – Lancaster, Indino – Tampa, Eventgrabber – Orlando, Wannadoo- Nashville, BandsInTown. Clear was used for a personal lists of events.A few trying to solve this problem posted their app info.(Flyer App, Culture Craver, Stash, Loudie, Daybee, another thing in beta wrote me privately and will roll out soon)
As you just listed, this space is crowded with people trying to solve this problem. I am working on it as well, as I mentioned to you in our emails. The main problem I see companies historically facing is user acquisition, retention, and a competitive advantage. It is comparable to local business listings and recommendations pre-Yelp. CitySearch was around 9 years before Yelp came to be. Soon after, Yelp took over the space and has a real competitive advantage. I have been building my startup in reflection of this analogy. It’s called Saunter. To no surprise, Saunter is Yelp for the arts.We will be launching our beta in music nationally next month. You can follow us at https://twitter.com/@SaunterIt or email me at [email protected] to be notified when we launch.Thank you @panterosa:disqus for igniting this conversation. It was a pleasure reading everyone’s thoughts.
Glad you joined us in the discussion Adam. Good luck with it and I’ll try it out. For a while, I may have dueling apps on my phone, until I can see which suits me and why.
This is an interesting question. When you first think about it you wonder, why hasn’t this problem been “solved”.I remember back when I first came to NYC in the late 90’s. Friends would lament when an event, venue or secret restaurant had been “timeout-ified” because it had been featured in timeout and thus discovered by the masses. That was when it was on the way out, discovered and soon forgotten.I’ve seen a lot of nightlife & entertainment mobile apps come and go, and I think they suffer from the same challenges.It seems there are two ways events can be promoted. One is by the event itself, and the other is by word-of-mouth. I can see how venues might want to push and promote their stuff on apps & try to build following. But for the ones which are the secret gems, will hipsters, aficionados & connoiseurs want to share this info? The apps rely on crowd sourced information. Therein lies the rub.
http://www.daybees.com
Certainly a search engine like yours is an excellent tool, Stephen. But how to sift the high quality events from the weaker ones? Who knows what’s hot? I suspect that will continue to be valuable and illusive information…
The key challenges are:1. too many things in too many lists – painful to skim through2. social isn’t necessarily a great filter across media – I might share someone’s movie tastes but not their music tastes – so each one needs its own graph. (This argues for events being integrated into medium-specific stream – tie music shows to your Spotify activity, etc.) Though maybe this at least gives you a smaller list to skim through…3. you have to get your match “in time” – for your own schedule, and for ticket availability.
This thread definitely reminds be of the John Adams scene when he was in France… http://www.youtube.com/watc… , Most people on this list are maybe in the second generation so probably don’t have enough money or time to take advantage of the ‘season’.
The sad part is the missing. While none of us can do everything, there is so much more we could do, and would enjoy, if we had time to plan it. Missed opportunities are depressing.
Charlie, there are over 6000 events that take place annually just for children and families alone. I can’t even begin to imagine what the scope is for adults. Time Out New York probably has the best most comprehensive mobile app just in NYC for adults, but as far as everywhere???? I’m sure it can be done, but it’s a doozy of a problem. Not just in terms of scale, but in terms of making enough money to support the business.
Hey Charlie, there is a great web app called Calester that is trying to solve this exact problem! I would recommend at least giving it a go. http://calester.com/
I’d like a single place to go to find any kind of event, anywhere. It’s unreal this doesn’t exist.Related but not what you want:My daughter was involved last year as a campus rep for http://involvio.com/The idea was to have one person get all the things that normally go on college kiosks and put them into an app.So the campus rep (who is paid nominally) was in charge of getting all the info together that a college student would be interested in event wise.In any case in order for an idea like this to work on a larger scale there actually needs to be people collecting all the information to make it comprehensive. [1] Otherwise you end up with some type of “local” mediocre solution like when you try to find a plumber online and are confronted with un curated garbage that makes you not want to come back and search again.This is what made the yellow pages work. It was a profitable business that allowed for a professional type sales staff that collected all the info and also gave people the opportunity to place ads. So the product in the end worked for many many years. And everyone was there you didn’t need to place an ad. And the money from the ads paid for admin people to make sure everyone had a listing under the correct heading. And because the ads were paid the idea was that if a vendor paid for an ad under a heading you could really get the product or service from that vendor. So there was very little spam.For collecting this type of into I think it would take that type of approach.You need (to use the expression going around now) “boots on the ground” to keep on top of everything. [2] And the boots have to be local. And they have to be in Lancaster as well as NYC, Philly and Chicago. Just like the yellow pages was everywhere and became the ubiquitous place to go when you needed to find something local.[1] Because the universe of events, times and places is not static like hotel rooms or restaurants are. And the number of players isn’t fixed like with airlines so you can’t just sell to the major players and have the problem solved.[2] Otherwise you end up with a situation where just like with google where someone’s old phone number lives on forever. The place we moved out of 3 years ago still comes up in search.
not in nyc. Tons of lists out there, but no one aggregator to win them all
You have partly explained why my efforts in search,discovery, recommendation, curation, notification,and subscription do not focus on ‘events’ — if wantlarge scope, say, the whole Internet, US, or world,then it’s too difficult to collect the data andfilter out the spam.Another reason not to focus on events is thatinformation on the events is of little interestafter the event occurs. Then, also, the time windowwhere can collect data on the event is short. And,of course, mostly feedback on the event is of littleuse in the future since the event won’t happenagain.So, the Internet ‘content’ I am focusing on likelyhas some lasting value — more time to collect gooddata on the content, filter out spam, etc.Yes, what data to collect, how the user interface(UI) will work, what data to get from a user for agiven ‘search’ or query, how to manipulate the data(necessarily a mathematical question, however, withno easy mathematical answers), for a given amathematical solution, how to develop some efficientcomputational algorithms, how to design and writethe software for the Web site to give good resultsfor the needs, now, in three recent threads ofFred’s — today and before, video clips and blogs –are all important.Sorry, guys, my work doesn’t try to do much forFred’s issue today! Another approach is needed, andLE’s post here describes some of the challenges forwhich I don’t have a good solution and, thus, wantto avoid attacking.But for Fred’s issue today, there is some good news:Compared with all the content on the Internet, thereare relatively few ‘events’, say, concerts, plays,lectures, rallies, to occur, say, within the next 12months. And there is another likely important issue– a lot of geographical locality! So, a goodsolution doesn’t have to start world wide or even USnationwide but can start in say, just LA, SF,Chicago, Boston, NYC, or DC, or, heck, just Peoria,Pittsburgh, Sandusky, Little Rock, etc. and expandfrom there. So, a lot more hand work, maybesomething like done for the Yellow Pages, and lesscomputer based, hands off automation, should beappropriate and possible.Ah, I got through the first pass of ‘Lohengrin’!Yup, the knight defeated the bad guy and married thepretty girl. Alas the evil witch had put a lot ofdoubts into the mind of the girl, and she went offon a big catalog of poorly founded, nearlyirrational fears about her new husband and ruinedtheir marriage. Good catalog for men to understandand think about how to handle! Men: If a perfect,invincible knight of the Holy Grail can’t make herfeel secure, then you’ve got a real challenge towork on!The music? The best of it, just terrific. Time tolisten again and pay more attention to the music viathe score, etc.!
there is …. Daybees.com <www.daybees.com> plus apps for android and iPhones.
Impossible? No. Too difficult? Maybe.See my post here above:http://www.avc.com/a_vc/201…
I just strolled around in there and I liked what I saw. One of the movies was no longer playing and it was still listed. It seemed there were a few of those. But it was easy to navigate and I liked the section on “closing soon.”