Of course, one thing every traveler is faced with is finding things to do wherever they may be.
One option is live events.
NB: This is a viewpoint by Drew Meyers , founder of
Oh Hey World.
Last year, I was in Denver for a week visiting a friend. I didn't have any plans for my last two nights there (Mon/Tues) -- so I ended up looking up concerts on Sunday afternoon. To my surprise, Mumford and Sons was playing the next night. Unfortunately, it was already sold out so I couldn't go (I wasn't really into spending a crapload of money on a scalped ticket). Had I known that ahead of time, I likely would have purchased a ticket.
The event space for travelers is not solved. Far from it. Upcoming was doing a great job with events quite a few years ago, yet
Yahoo shut it down earlier this year.
WCities is trying their hand in the space with its
EventSeeker app, which was recently updated for iOS7.
I had a chance to ask Daniel Lysaught, the product manager for Eventseeker, a few questions to better understand what problem it solves, their thinking behind it, and where they are going next.
What is the core problem you believe Eventseeker solves?
We believe that apps should benefit your real life experiences and not take away from them. We take information users have already provided to facebook, twitter or any music streaming service and apply that to events. Instead of searching for things to do we will notify you when these bands, sports teams, comedians and more are playing in your area and recommend other similar events that should interest them as well.
Who is your target user, and how are you reaching them?
Our target user is anyone that likes to get out and have a good time. Someone that would prefer to see a concert live instead of watching on their couch at home. Someone that doesn't settle for what they already know, but likes to step outside their comfort zone and try something new. We hope that users discover their next favorite performer through a recommendation that we have provided.
Personalization is key - how do you think about that in the event space, and how do you ensure the product uses the data points in the background to deliver on it?
For events it is really quite easy because people already know what type of music they like to see, what sports interest them or what theater production and usually they have stated this through liking or following these people on social networks.
We tap into this so they will never miss their favorite performers again and also discover new artists that are similar to the ones they already follow. We have taken what Pandora does for listening to music and applied it to the event space.
Another side of personalization is giving people the tools to interact with their friends. People do not want to attend events by themselves, so we added invite capabilities that can tap into their facebook, twitter, email or sms. We also added a friends activity feed so you can keep updated in real time on what events your friends will be attending.
What were the biggest challenges bringing it to market?
As with any app these days it is getting noticed. The best way to gain a user is through a recommendation from a friend. This is why we emphasized the social aspect of events and made sure these tools are easy to use and functional. We believe we have a great product that should minimize the time people spend on their phones and maximize the real like experiences that really matter.
What is the next product iteration?
We just released our ios7 version of the app which we are extremely proud of. We are always thinking about how we can take the personalization side of the app even further than we already have. It would be great to one day have people interacting through the discover, purchase and attending part of the event process all on eventseeker.
My thoughts in conclusion
I've played with the app, and it's certainly got some good events in it. The path to book tickets directly for those events is straightforward, so there's obvious monetization potential.
The app's weakness is the same weakness that is prevalent all across the web; information overload. There is too much effort required to sort through and find the gems I'm actually interested in. And I want social proof to know who else is going to those events.
So how will Eventseeker get enough volume of data to deliver on that? And what do I really want in an event app?
I want to input my next trip, and receive a small curated version of events occurring for the dates I'll be in city X specific that includes bands I like, startup tech events, and events people I know (or their friends) are going to. How will someone deliver on that? Well, I'm not sure -- hence the reason I haven't built an events app.
The solution, will likely come from a founder who
does something that doesn't scale.
NB: This is a viewpoint by Drew Meyers, founder of
Oh Hey World.NB2: Event image courtesy Shutterstock.