EventTank

Find our proof-of-concept, live demo here.

Just to set your expectations, the demo is proof-of-concept.  The demo uses information from two event data sources and for a geographical area near downtown Atlanta.  This was our goal for Startup Weekend.  Searches like “comedy,” “music,” “technology,” and “museum” return reasonable results.  We envision faceted search, such as the various filters found in product searches, that would limit the number of results and return more targeted results.  A different geographical search could draw results from any geographic area, such as state, nation, or planet.

Faceted search presents users with sets of “filters,” each set narrowing (or expanding) search results. Filters use meta data from the various event sources, such as date, category, venue, or tags (keywords).  Your event search might use a filter based on your home city and interest.  A visitor interested in the “Web” might be offered filters on design, development, technology, blogging, marketing, SEO, etc.

We intend that you could pull event data from many sources and send filtered results to your personal calendar.  Event organizers could post events across various Websites and collect fees in flexible ways.  Event Managers could sponsor links or advertise to promote their event.  Pundits might curate an event calendar in their space.  Pricing starts with free, yet we expect to charge for functionality that we do not find in existing event Websites.

Consider whether your personal calendar and other event calendars that you use really have all the features you want.  Reconciling across many sites is difficult.  We organize and attend many events and find this to be true across Websites like Eventful, Eventbrite, Upcoming, Meetup, Google calendars, Mashable, ReadWriteWeb, and the many individual sites for trade shows, conferences, and organizations.