[syndication] Syndication for Events

Forwarded from the Syndication list.

I'd like to build something in this space to deal with the 100s of 
event announcments that get sent to W3C mailing lists in prose form.

Haven't gotten my thoughts in order yet though or had 
a good look at http://events.fyuze.com but I do note there's definitely
a lot of interest in calendar data sharing lately :)

Dan

----- Forwarded message from justin klubnik <pseudonym@mindspring.com> -----

From: justin klubnik <pseudonym@mindspring.com>
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 12:20:29 -0500
To: syndication <syndication@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: [syndication] Syndication for Events
Message-ID: <000701c39fd3$485d5d60$6420a8c0@madskillwrwu5b>
Reply-To: syndication@yahoogroups.com

One interesting use of syndication technology that has shown up recently is
the "Event Aggregator." For example:

* http://feedster.com/pdc/
* http://feedster.com/osxcon/
* http://bloggercon.localfeeds.com/
* I also remember seeing one based on TrackBacks, hosted at sixapart.com,
for one of the O'Reilly Conferences (or maybe a couple of them).

Basically, Event Aggregators collect posts from event attendees, and compile
them into one page. It's a great way to see what people who are going to be
at the conference are talking about, figure out who you might want to meet,
and a simple way to see what everyone thought about the event afterwards.
Also a good way to throw your two cents into the fray, so maybe someone will
want to meet you.

Since there are lots of people and lots of events it seems only right that
their should be lots of Event Aggregators. The concept behind such a thing
is not terribly difficult, but in practice it can be tricky given the wide
range of RSS formats and quirky feeds. There is also a need for software to
track and scan for updates, remove duplicates, and create something pretty
to look at.

Having those things at my disposal, I bring you: http://events.fyuze.com

events.fyuze.com makes it easy for anyone to create and join events. Simply
drop your RSS feed into a form, and you're done. If your event is not
listed: create it.

I've put together a sample Event Aggregator for O'Reilly's upcoming Emerging
Technology Conference: http://events.fyuze.com/event/1/ I've only added a
few of the presenters, but if you are going, please click the "Register"
button and add yourself to the mix.

Some might find it useful to have a feed for the event so they could
subscribe to it: http://events.fyuze.com/event/1/index.rdf Every event has
its own RSS feed containg the compiled posts (last 50) of all listed
participants.

Obviously this kind of thing is only useful if a reasonable amount of people
who will be in attendance have blogs. For technology oriented conferences,
this is not much of a problem. For things other than tech, there is probably
not much use for such a thing, yet.

One might argue that there will be a lot of noise in this type of
compilation. In one respect that is true. If you wanted posts that only deal
specifically with the conference, tighter filters would need to be added.
Doable. Something as simple as keywords for the event might do. Certainly
there are more advanced techniques as well. Doing only TrackBacks (or
PingBacks) would also solve this problem, though it requires more effort on
the part of participants. However, if you're looking to get to know a little
bit about the people you might meet, and what they're up to, the noise could
round things out nicely. It would also be possible to do interesting things
like see which groups of people attend which conferences. Maybe you've been
to the same 3 as someone else but never met them before. This could help you
find those people. I guess this would qualify as "Social Software".

It's the internet, so it's open to abuse just like everything else. People
who aren't going to an event could join. People could create fake events.
Options here include owned events that require a "trusted" attendee's
approval for addition to the list, collaborative filtering, using FOAF to
built trust networks, etc.

But for now, have fun with it. Go join or create and event at
http://events.fyuze.com

Justin Klubnik

(Sorry if you got hit by cross-posting)



 

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----- End forwarded message -----

Received on Friday, 31 October 2003 12:41:42 UTC