Localist Blog

Announcing: Columbia College Chicago

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 10:00:05 -0500

We love arts schools. The creative class is defining a generation, and will likely dictate America’s economy for the foreseeable future. Schools like Columbia College are a pipeline of this fuel for change.

We especially love working with creative schools because they’re invariably excited about looking at everything with a fresh perspective. One look at Columbia’s site is a strong indicator of that.

Columbia’s approach to their events is sure to be unique. We’ll be sharing a link here when their new calendar launches.

The Dana Farber Cancer Institute Uses Localist

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:52:41 -0500

We’re working with a lot of schools (over 42 now!), so we never pass on an opportunity to remind folks that we work with non-profits as well, as ultimately, Localist is about connecting people to events.

DFCI’s breakthroughs have led to a better understanding of treating, preventing and eliminating cancer, along with dramatic discoveries in the innerworkings of the AIDS virus.

The Dana Farber Cancer Institute is under the Harvard Medical School umbrella. They’re doing incredible work in cancer research and are noted as one of the top five cancer hospitals in the US.

In short, we’re very excited to be working with such a prestigious institution!

Localist in List of Finalists for Best App Creator

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:00:43 -0500

We’re nominated in two categories Baltimore Business Journal’s Biz Buzz Awards: App Creator and Mobile Web!

We’re very humbled by the recognition. Check out the full press release here.

November Features, Functionality and Fixes

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 11:25:56 -0500

Every month, we announce the major Localist Platform features, functionality and fixes that have been deployed recently. Here’s what was launched in November:

Added JSON output to our API in preparation for Localist API 2.0.

Added ability to force event type/group/department assignment on incoming event feeds

Added support for time zones to the iCal feed importer.

Added support for platform-specific privacy setting default values.

Added near/within geographical criteria to API.

Optimized all platform UI images for better performance.

Optimized photo cropper algorithm.

Widgets are now location-aware! Event results can be dynamically sorted based on proximity to the user.

Cleaned up user settings when user is logged in via single sign-on.

Event listings can now show their associated type and department below the title. Check Cornell’s calendar for an example.

Completely redesigned admin newsletter interface for more intuitive content curation.

Changed event attendee list to show an accurate count, even if users mark their attendance as private.

Localist mimics social networking sites

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 14:44:00 -0500

Localist mimics social networking sites:

This is back from August; Towson University’s paper wrote a story about the launch of Localist at their institution. It gives a great sense of why Towson decided to go with Localist and what they prioritized as an organization.

A select quote from Matt Sikorski, Towson’s SGA President:

“I truly believe this could be a game changer in terms of advertising for student groups and on-campus departments, as well as for students who are just looking for something to do,” he said. “There haven’t been resources like this website where you can customize your profile and follow events that fall under a certain category or a certain venue on campus. No more looking around at 900 different types of advertising, this can just be your one-stop hub.”

University of the Pacific's Calendar Launches

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 11:44:39 -0500

University of the Pacific's Calendar Launches:

The University of the Pacific just launched a major site-wide redesign; Localist went along for the ride!

Pacific is making excellent use of our widgets, including several custom widget layouts (check the “Calendar of Events” tab).

Localist Takes Off at the University of Rhode Island

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 10:40:09 -0500

Localist Takes Off at the University of Rhode Island:

The University of Rhode Island has officially launched their new calendar, powered by Localist, naturally.

The school is making great use of our widget capabilities, putting Localist widgets at every major access point on their main website.

October Features, Functionality and Fixes

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 11:15:19 -0500

Every month, we announce the major Localist Platform features, functionality and fixes that have been deployed recently. Here’s what was launched in October:

Added event taxonomy filters to school homepage by default.

Added SILK support for mobile layouts.

Added movie listing feature on Localist for Media platform.

Added additional field support in CSV template.

Added ability to enable custom fields on the public event submission form.

Added ability to sort order of custom fields.

Fixed an issue where some pages weren’t displaying properly in IE9.

Switched to Facebook’s new JavaScript API.

Tightened Eventbrite “event pull” integration.

Beefed up the CSV importer to handle more format types, resulting in less manual massaging of data.

Changed name of “First Load” to “Waterfall.” Explanation here.

Localist Launches at the University of Delaware

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 13:54:00 -0400

The University of Delaware just announced the official launch of their new calendar, powered by Localist. They’re calling it @UD!

Check out their formal announcement here.

The team over at Delaware even made a great video outlining how their users should enter an event into Localist. It can’t get any easier.

Localist Loves Clemson

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 11:00:00 -0400

We’re happy to announce a new partnership with Clemson University! We’ve also been granted sole source approval in South Carolina. If you’re an SC school and you want to know more about Localist, there are now officially zero reasons not to.

Thoughts on EDUCAUSE 2011 - Wednesday

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 14:44:00 -0400

If I had to sum up the excitement at EDUCAUSE this year, I’d use one word: Cloud. Almost every vendor in the exhibit hall is featuring a product that operates partly, or wholly, in the cloud.

I attended a session outlining how an institution could develop a business case for using cloud services over developing in-house. The pros were clear:

Actually improve service levels, as SaaS is designed to scale
Predictable cost models, by avoiding periodic technology overhauls. Cloud software is a moving target that improves over time at the same ongoing cost.
Scalability is now a reality for smaller institutions trying to become bigger players.
No more requirement for in-house support staff, which can be cost prohibitive.
Communicating outside the institution is much easier.

The main challenges raised could be easily addressed upfront in a legal agreement.

Undetermined backup scenario.
Overseeing policy compliance.
Privacy challenges.
“Consumerization” - i.e. not all technology decisions are made in IT anymore.

Joe Weinman’s blog on the 10 Laws of Cloudonomics sheds more light on the overall cloud landscape and how it fits with all types of industries.

My questions for you, the institution:

Q: In the SaaS realm, how important is the ability to change the ‘packaged’ product? Do you change your workflow to adopt what the product deems appropriate, or do you insist on working with the vendor to change things?

Q: We’ve heard that cloud software reduces costs, saves time, allows for a scalable infrastructure. It sounds like a no-brainer. if you’re not using any cloud software, what fundamental factors are still holding you back?

Q: What key indicators do you look at for determining adoption from a training/marketing perspective? Meaning, a piece of software could be perfect for your institution, but the strategy for informing students/staff might be lacking. Do you track that?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

- Myke Nahorniak

Attending EDUCAUSE? We'll be there!

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 15:22:00 -0400

Come say hi! We’ll be roaming the halls chatting about software-as-a-service, cloud computing, social media and how it can all be leveraged at educational institutions.

More information about EDUCAUSE.

"You know what we want to use Localist for better than we do. We’ve seen hundreds of..."

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 11:04:00 -0400

“You know what we want to use Localist for better than we do. We’ve seen hundreds of technologies we’d like to integrate with and nobody does it like this. This is amazing.”

- Awesome quote from Weill Cornell Medical College, who we just partnered with!

September Features, Functionality and Fixes

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 15:31:00 -0400

This is the first of many monthly blog posts where we announce any major Localist Platform features, functionality and fixes that have been deployed over the past month.

Language localization on all buttons. For example, “I’m Going” can change to “Save” on your platform.

Nearby Public Transportation. Dynamically highlight the bus/subway stops nearest to events or places.

Upgraded to Facebook’s Graph API. This will allow us to do very cool things in the future!

Eventbrite RSVP sync. We now dynamically pull in events (and their attendee lists) from Eventbrite events.

Standardized mobile view across all platforms. We revisited the default mobile platform and “normalized” it, allowing for ingestor support and much easier modification at the customer level.

Added option to allow event submission to all groups from non-group-members.

Added support for custom fields into the CSV uploader.

Added additional tag for Google Analytics to track click events across the platform.

…and, as always, various bug fixes.

Does Google Know About Your Calendar?

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 13:44:00 -0400

A recent study compared the “crawlability” of Localist to other popular university calendaring systems, 25Live and Trumba — that is, how well search engines can index the pages being served. It consistently found that search caches of Localist content at institutions outnumbered those of other systems by thousands. Any calendars served by 25Live or Trumba were virtually invisible.

Some examples of Google’s indexed pages:
Cornell University - Localist:
Results: 219,000.
Individual events are cached discretely by Google, giving the calendar a rich presence on the Web. Since event calendars change frequently, Google will visit this site often, looking for new content.

California State University San Marcos - Trumba:
Results: 1.
In this example, Google has found only the index page of the calendar. Google cannot see links to any individual events, or even RSS feeds. Therefore, none of the actual calendar content can be indexed by any search engine.

Chemeketa Community College calendar - 25Live:
Results: 2.
Similar to the example above, only the index page was found by Google.

Working with over thirty five institutions across the US has allowed us to consistently measure how much traffic search engines generate when it comes to finding calendar information. On average, 45% of the traffic to Localist calendars is from search engines. If your institution uses a Google Appliance to manage the indexing of all the content on your website, it will pick up Localist content as well.

Even more importantly, most students are used to performing a search, not navigating through various menus on a school’s website, so having up-to-date calendar content available via search, not just on a website, is integral to getting a student more involved.

Want to read the rest? Check out our White Papers section

Williams College Launches its Calendar

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 09:59:00 -0400

Williams College Launches its Calendar

The College of Notre Dame Renames and Rebrands

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 11:57:26 -0400

The College of Notre Dame Renames and Rebrands:

The College of Notre Dame has a new name: Notre Dame of Maryland University. Along with this name change comes an excellent site redesign. The school’s version of Localist was rebranded to follow suit.

New Site

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 13:09:25 -0400

We just launched a long-overdue homepage refresh. Check it out!

Our intention was to better explain the benefits of Localist while simplifying the overall presentation. Be sure to check out the demo video if you’d like to learn more about what Localist can do at your institution.

Localist Wins Sole Source Vendor Status in Four States

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 11:01:05 -0400

Public organizations in Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and Rhode Island have chosen Localist as their vendor for a social events calendar.

What does this mean? Because no other company does what Localist can, we’re able to directly engage with state-run institutions without going through the RFP process. If you’re at a public institution in the states mentioned, you don’t need to deal with any red tape. Localist is pre-approved!

Check out our full press release on this subject.

Want to help grant Localist sole-source status in your state? Let us know by sending an email to info@localist.com.

Eight Universities Select Localist To Engage Students, Unify Campus Life

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 12:00:00 -0400

DePaul University - Chicago, Ill.
Emmanuel College - Boston, Mass.
Towson University - Towson, Md.
University of Delaware - Newark, Del.
University of Rhode Island - Kingston, RI..
Virginia Military Institute - Lexington, Va.
Williams College - Williamstown, Mass.

That means we’re now serving over 105,000 students! Read the full press release.