Brian Dear from EVDB and Eventful is speaking on calendar as platform. His talk is title "When Do We Get the Events We Want?" He gives a quick overview of the company. EVDB stands for the Events and Venues Database. The goal is to maximize event discovery. The Web has done a pretty bad job of getting people to the events they're interested in. Making data for events open and portable is important, so is having the right tools to manage that data.
The company has a platform called EVDB and a portal called Eventful. Anyone can use EVDB. The portal has three dimension. First, known events and the various capabilities like search, groups, submission, tags, feeds, etc. that go along with that. The primary goal is attention for the event.
The second dimension is expected events. These events don't exist yet, but they're expected to happen in the future. The primary tools here are prospective search and notifications. An example: notify me if Tim O'Reilly is ever speaking within 100 miles of my zip code.
The third dimension is about dream events. These are events that you wish would happen. The primary tools provide a way of aggregating demand. This isn't just a wishlist. The goal isn't to sell the demand data to labels or promoters. This is about fans and performers. Unconferences are an example of this in the tech world. This is basically a marketplace for experiences.
Brian shows off the tools for creating demand. This feature just launched today. The tools are pretty cool. Good creation tools, ways to create blog stickers, and a dashboard for following what's happening. Demanding something doesn't mean you'll get it, but this feature at least let's you try.