Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Upcoming needs to move forward

I have been a long time user of Upcoming, but I have noticed in recent months the number of events being posted there has drastically fallen, or at least in the London area that is my feeling. Upcoming (now owned by Yahoo!) has the potential to be a lot more than it currently is. Being that it is really based around what is happening a where the user interface doesnt have a natural feel for these simple requirements. Of course its major thing is that you can see what other people are interested or attending and a mix of this along with better tools but this is where competition from social networks such as facebook become a challenge, especially in the fact that facebook is a rapidly evolving platform that keeps the interest of its users hooked. Also there feels like a missed opportunity in not having a decent mobile site, this should really fit into a calendar and alert people to new events and send reminders for events, along with details of where they are. So where now for upcoming. Well I guess the future of Yahoo! is up in the air regards the Microsoft interest so perhaps nothing will change for a while, which is a real shame as I like these social networks that just focus on one area rather than try to be something for everyone.