Tell HN: Take My Idea - A Social Calendar
10 comments
Eventing, like college textbook trading, is a perennial tar pit. That's not to say you shouldn't try, but see how and why others have failed.
One of the problems I see with what you describe is the amount of management that I'd have to do in order to make it work, since I have different social circles that I need different privacy settings on and each have their own page for group discussions, and then you can choose attend/not attend, etc. For me, it'd seem like a lot of time and work I don't want to be spending organizing.
One of the problems I see with what you describe is the amount of management that I'd have to do in order to make it work, since I have different social circles that I need different privacy settings on and each have their own page for group discussions, and then you can choose attend/not attend, etc. For me, it'd seem like a lot of time and work I don't want to be spending organizing.
This is very similar to an idea I have had in my head for a while now (I put it up on the recent startup ideas Google spreadsheet). The main angle that I thought would be to have it built around a recommendation engine that tries to actively show you things you may like to do with friends, family, etc. The main key innovation I had in mind was trying to use images to come up with recommendations, ie if you post pics of mountain biking it looks for upcoming races etc. If you like the suggestion you can share it with your friends and create an event for a group.
I reckon if done in the right way (ie good privacy approach and user control over it), you should be able to make money through links to the events (although I think the revene model would need to have the right incentives ie aligned to suggesting the best stuff).
And the image stuff is hard - but would be pretty great if done right!
I reckon if done in the right way (ie good privacy approach and user control over it), you should be able to make money through links to the events (although I think the revene model would need to have the right incentives ie aligned to suggesting the best stuff).
And the image stuff is hard - but would be pretty great if done right!
> I want to rank my friends, be part of different social circles, because that's how I operate.
That's actually a really good point, you've hit the nail on the head with that one.
That's actually a really good point, you've hit the nail on the head with that one.
Going one step further, it would be very nice to be able to supply information to different users based on their group. This is another thing which is lacking in Facebook. In fact it is something which is currently lacking from every social network (that I'm aware of at least). Everyone scrambling to build the next Facebook in the wake of the recent debacle may want to take some of these ideas.
For example, in your "About Me" section, with your co-workers you may want to say that you enjoy programming and playing around with server configuration whereas with your old college pals, you may want to say that you miss the days of binge drinking and getting laid. You would not want either group to see the other explanation of who "you" are.
Specifically related to this idea, you may want to have enable your college pals to see that you are attending "Remembering the good ole days kegger reunion party" while you may want your co-workers to see that you are attending a conference on some technology. You probably do not want them both to see the events that the other sees.
On a basic level, I like how Google Voice handles this. You can specify a certain voicemail message to be heard by people who are not in your phone book, and different voicemail messages for any groups you have created. This allows me to have a silly message played only for my friends and not worry that an important call will come in from an unknown number and get my silly message. This concept expanded to any and all properties of a social network seems crucial as far as I am concerned.
For example, in your "About Me" section, with your co-workers you may want to say that you enjoy programming and playing around with server configuration whereas with your old college pals, you may want to say that you miss the days of binge drinking and getting laid. You would not want either group to see the other explanation of who "you" are.
Specifically related to this idea, you may want to have enable your college pals to see that you are attending "Remembering the good ole days kegger reunion party" while you may want your co-workers to see that you are attending a conference on some technology. You probably do not want them both to see the events that the other sees.
On a basic level, I like how Google Voice handles this. You can specify a certain voicemail message to be heard by people who are not in your phone book, and different voicemail messages for any groups you have created. This allows me to have a silly message played only for my friends and not worry that an important call will come in from an unknown number and get my silly message. This concept expanded to any and all properties of a social network seems crucial as far as I am concerned.
I think the dutch 'hyves' has something like that.
Though you may not be manually ranking in Facebook, I believe they do have some algorithms on the back end which promote people you interact with more frequently in the newsfeed.
I could be wrong though. A quick search didn't point to anything.
If they don't do this, it shouldn't be too difficult to do via the social graph.
I could be wrong though. A quick search didn't point to anything.
If they don't do this, it shouldn't be too difficult to do via the social graph.
Yes, but unless the names match they don't know who is family and who are friends and who are acquaintances, and I might like to set my privacy levels different for different groups of viewers.
Manually implemented something like this in my fbook account, but it was a major pain to do and doesn't provide all of the proposed functionality/openness.
It would ruin much of their "walled-garden" strategy to let this work with other services. What they believe is their strength, will become their weakness.
It would ruin much of their "walled-garden" strategy to let this work with other services. What they believe is their strength, will become their weakness.
This is exactly what we are doing in toostis.com. We try to create a one-in-one tool for sharing this kind of information with your interest circles (that we call "tribes"). Currently when you log in and start attending events the recommendation algorithm learns about different social groups you belong to.
One needs to consider three approaches of forming an interest circle: shared (an explicit list of members), individual (each user maintains several lists of his friends) and automatic (extracting subgraphs of user relation according to attendance).
What we are currently willing to provide is the combination of them all. Automatic extraction is fun to play with, but you always want more control over it. We are also preparing to launch something similar to the shared model, where you could subscribe to an organizer which is basically a group of related events.
One needs to consider three approaches of forming an interest circle: shared (an explicit list of members), individual (each user maintains several lists of his friends) and automatic (extracting subgraphs of user relation according to attendance).
What we are currently willing to provide is the combination of them all. Automatic extraction is fun to play with, but you always want more control over it. We are also preparing to launch something similar to the shared model, where you could subscribe to an organizer which is basically a group of related events.
Sounds great:) i'll try it!
I am able to do this with Linkedin - my connections are tagged into priority groups. Selected Meetup, Yelp, Facebook and e-mailed events go to my public calendar:
http://sites.google.com/site/aurametrix/events
(It can be easily done with Google Calendar API)
Of course, this could just mean that I am not in your target market.
Is it a product or a feature? I don't know, but that may illustrate the heart of the problem, and the difference between Kiko and Facebook.
I think startups have been trying to do this since Web 1.0.
Maybe a freemium model? Target businesses? [Though they use Outlook.]
BTW don't let your friends see that ranking! ;)
I think startups have been trying to do this since Web 1.0.
Maybe a freemium model? Target businesses? [Though they use Outlook.]
BTW don't let your friends see that ranking! ;)
I think it could stand alone as a product. As far as people trying this from Web 1.0 days - I'd say that was just a timing issue.
Is this demanded enough that you'd actually pay for it? Don't wanna sound like a jerk or anything, just wanna see how big the demand is.
The CPMs on event related things might be high enough to just rely on ads.
http://mixergy.com/evite-harry-lin/ "effective CPM, when I left the company, we got, we’d driven it up, the effective CPM was just under ten dollars. And on certain pages, certain classes of pages, we enjoyed a one hundred dollar CPM, on all those ads"
http://mixergy.com/evite-harry-lin/ "effective CPM, when I left the company, we got, we’d driven it up, the effective CPM was just under ten dollars. And on certain pages, certain classes of pages, we enjoyed a one hundred dollar CPM, on all those ads"
Depending on the price range I would. My fiancee and I already use a shared calendar but it is woefully equipped for the heavy use she and I put it through.
All I can tell you is that it's something I'd definitely use, and something many of my friends who I've told this to over the years would use. That's not saying much, sure, but if you could provide a valuable and useful service, the demand will certainly follow.
Meetup.com has some of this though may not allow totally secret/private groups/events.
Checkout the Tonido workspace application http://www.tonido.com.
You can create multiple social groups and have a calendar for each group as well.
You can create multiple social groups and have a calendar for each group as well.
The goal is to make the ultimate personal and social calendar. Events are suggested and committed to my calendar manually, via my groups/social circles, and suggestions from friends. The user joins a variety of groups, anywhere from his economics class group to the Justin Bieber fan club, and is also member of social circles that him and his friends have created - "school friends", "research team", etc. Each group/circle has their own page for group discussions, etc. Any time an authorized group member or friend in a social circle posts an event, it pops up on in the appropriate slot on my calendar. I can then choose to attend/maybe/not attend, comment, and share the event with others, all directly from my calendar. For every event that has occurred, an event page is created for photos/etc and only viewable by group/circle members. Now, I think this would be pretty huge if implemented correctly. The way I see it, the user logs in to their big calendar decorated in flashing notifications of new events occurring or being suggested. He/she also fills in personal events - "study in library"- and can organize his/her social life around that. Sharing events would be big too, I think.
What problem does it solve? Well, one thing I've always hated about Facebook is that it puts all my friends/acquaintances/etc on the same level, and that's not how it works. I want to rank my friends, be part of different social circles, because that's how I operate. With one group of friends I may act totally different than with another. And so a big part of this idea is giving users the freedom to create their own social circles, and define who they are by the circles they join and groups they're members of, and giving them the ability to plan their lives around that. I feel that more closely resembles how we act in real life. We attend a party with one circle, and go to the company dinner with the next, and there's little to no overlap most of the time; and a lot of the times we keep those two circles separate with a wall of privacy, for many obvious and various reasons. With this idea, you get that privacy, that control to choose which circles you're a part of, how to communicate with them, and how to plan your life around them.
I know this is something Google Calendar might be trying to accomplish, or what Kiko might have been intended for, but I just don't feel it's been done right. Socializr somewhat aims at doing that, but that site is crap - I've tried it. Biggest competitor is Facebook, clearly. Not sure how you'd position this properly to beat them out; I haven't thought that far ahead.