Web 2.0 For Events

Marc Canter has answered my question (sorta) about this post discussing a web 2.0 version of an evite like application.

And I finally get what he is talking about.  I've always been thinking about different micro-content as silos of information. I think we all are.  Brad Feld is adding silos of information, but integrating them into his weblog around him - his brand.  Tony Gentile is arguing with Chuck Richard that bloglines is the start of consumer aggregation services, where people will be aggregating different content into a branded environment like bloglines (or my yahoo). So far, though, we don't have regular people leveraging  the  microcontent/structured blogging/APIs to do more than  just put things into a single interface for their own personal needs. Yes, most of what we are doing, is adding 1+1 to equal 2, for our own sadistic pleasures.   

What we need is to add together 1+1 to equal 3 or more and do it for other people. Web programmers are starting to put the pieces together as useful applications where the application is more useful than its parts.  The mashup of craigslist rental and house-for-sale listings and google maps is the best application I've seen so far.  We have ebay, google, overture, amazon, technorati, delicious, spurl, flickr and soon we'll have events with evdb & UPCOMING.ORG APIs. But, who is helping us combine them into interesting applications? And how will we combine them ourselves?  How will normal people combine all of this stuff?  Once we have all this information, how will people put it together in interesting ways?

That's right: The cool event web 2.0 application may be how we put a listing of events into a calendar for the purpose of discovery.  BUT, I'd bet that a cooler web 2.0 application for events is how we combine other information that is important to the event, into one interface for the purpose of event marketing and sharing experiences.

If the average blogger doesn't customize their weblog sidebar, and the average weblogger is probably savvier than the average person, how will we make this easy for them?  Marc suggests that a spreadsheet like application might be the answer, taking a cue from Esther Dyson's social software spreadsheet suggestion.  Spreadsheets? Is that the best analogy we can come up with?  How about a wiki-fied spreadsheet-database? Maybe jotspot or Socialtext will have some cool way of doing it?   

Whatever it is, I think we'll have to provide an interface that makes integrating silos of information as easy as writing an email or inserting clip art into a word document.

So, assuming that that is what we are working on (and this is your chance to guide us in the right direction)... what should be integrated into an event website?

Who's talking/blogging about this event? powered by technorati, feedster, blogpulse
What blog posts are related to this event? powered by waypath
What images were taken at this event? Powered by flickr
What books should I buy before attending this event?  Powered by Amazon
Is this event an auction? Can I bid online?  Powered by ebaylive.
Are there other events happening around the same time in the same city? Powered by upcoming.org, evdb
Who's bookmarked this event?  Powered by delicious, spurl.
What music is playing at this event?  powered by iTunes, purevolume (maybe not yet)
Who's coming to this event?  Powered by WhizSpark, FOAF, evite, upcoming.org, EVDB (maybe not yet)

What else?

After our own identity aggregation, and our own reading habits aggregation, events are the glue that brings us all together. Events are the next big aggregation puzzle.
 

Comments

[Eric Anderson]

"Are there other events happening around the same time in the same city? Powered by upcoming.org, evdb"

I'm not sure if upcoming.org or EVDB have such a feature, but it might be fun to link/mash-up event calendars and maps to satisfy this Search function. For example, events could be plotted on Google Maps and the teardrop markers color coded according to how to how soon the event occurs. For example, the user might select that events about to occur are plotted as red markers while more distant events are green. Alternatively, colors might code for the type of event (ie music; food; business; political). The marker's size might represent its temperol characteristic--which is to say, events in the near future earn a bigger marker while events in the more distant future are smaller. (I am unsure about whether marker size is malleable in the Maps' API--warrants further investigation.)

Anyway, neat post. Thanks!

[peter caputa]

Eric, That's an awesome idea! Let's do it. Do you want to take it on as a project? -Pete

[Eric Anderson]

I would have done it myself, but my web development skills are, as they say, none. Yeah, I'm a impotent idea guy. (No disrespect, Mr. Beattie.) Hopefully someone with some actual skills will see it here and pick it up. Or maybe the Lazyweb can save the day for us.

As other interface ideas, pop up, I'll post 'em; I'll stay tuned and pitch in where I can.