From our experience with the APIs of the big players in the event listing market
(Upcoming, Zvents, Eventful, TicketMaster, etc.), it is evident there is no standard
format being used to exchange event information behind the scenes.
Each API arbitrarily assigns its own naming scheme, date formats and data structure. We’ve had to pick up the slack at Localist by developing customized parsers to retrieve and standardize the information for each service.
We’d like to start a discussion with interested people in the industry about creating a standardized data interchange format. We’ve already created a preliminary standard, dubbed ELF (Event Listing Format), that can easily work with all existing services, along with an explanation of how it complements hCalendar. You can check out some example RAW XMLs too.
We know this community is filled with ridiculously smart people — some who may be interested in taking part in this discussion. If you, or anyone you know would like to be involved, shoot an e-mail to myke at localist.com.
UPDATE: A wiki page has been created to bring some organization to everyone’s ideas. There’s also a discussion happening in #elf on Freenode.
Localist Smash!!
We found it frustrating to see people on Twitter referring to the same event with different hashtags. After all, what’s the point of tagging something if nobody agrees on the name of the tag? A disorganized mess, we say!
Thus, every event and business on Localist now has its own unique hashtag so it can be easily referenced on Twitter. Check out Sonar or Ignite. See the little “Hashtag:” item? That’s what you’ll be using in your tweets.
So, bear with us while we attempt to illustrate your new, high falutin’ abilities:
What do you do with this hashtag? You make plans with it, of course! Simply put @localist, then the #hashtag anywhere in your tweet and your plan will be made! If you went somewhere yesterday, include “was” or “went” in your tweet. Here are some examples:
- @localist went to #sonar
- Will make a plan to go to Sonar, with yesterday’s date.
- @localist going to #ignite_baltimore
- Will make a plan to attend the Ignite Baltimore event
- @localist heading to #sonar, then going to #redbull_happy_hour
- Will make a plan to go to Sonar and attend the Redbull Happy Hour event
So now you’re saying, “Okay smart guy, what if I’m too busy to look up the hashtag?”
Pff, easy!
- @localist going to Sonar
- Will try to figure out what “Sonar” means and make a plan for it. It works pretty darn well, actually!
Phew! I know I’m confused. Give us a tweet if you need some help.
Visit m.localist.com on any mobile phone to view Localist in all its tiny-resolution glory. The site is designed to load fast while still delivering all the great information you need, so don’t worry about missing out on anything.
For best results, use a phone that supports full-HTML browsing (iPhone, T-Mobile G1, Blackberrys, etc). If you notice any strange quirks, don’t hesitate to contact us.
Some more exciting things are coming soon. Stay tuned!
You can now create and update your plans on Localist through Twitter! Specify your Twitter username in the Settings section of Localist to get started. Then, tweet your plans.
An example:
@localist going to Sonar
Localist will automatically update your plans for you.
Yes, that’s right. We have added subscription abilities to the Localist calendars. You can subscribe to a friend’s calendar, or the events calendar for the entire city! Check out the links on the calendar pages for Baltimore and Washington, DC.
We’ve been great! Here are a few things that rolled out recently:
- Anyone can now submit a public event to Localist
- Tweaked search to yield better results
- Fixed many, many, many cosmetic issues
- Improved overall readability of various elements
- Organized the footer to deliver more content
- You can now add your favorite places just by typing them in! Go to the Friends & Places section and click the “Places I Go” tab to check it out.
Here are a few significant changes we’ve rolled out over the past couple weeks:
- Completely redesigned plan creator
- Completely redesigned event submission
- Tweaked the “Most Popular” lists to be more accurate (finally)
We’ll post a preview of something very special soon…
We recently migrated to Rails 2.1! What does this mean? Not much. The idea is to stabilize Localist’s back end a bit and hopefully make things a little peppier.
We fixed a few quirks when testing the upgrade, but there might be some more out there. Send an e-mail to info@localist.com if you notice anything funky.
