Thanks for the heads up on this Avinash. I think it does not makes any sense to display nearby events by default because when you are viewing the events section, generally you want to see all available events on the site. Unless you explicitly want to view nearby events, you would just need to click on the nearby events filter

Hi Mark,

Thank you for replying

I think it is safe to assume that different implementations would require different views. For e.g.

1) Implementation of ES at a School => All Events makes sense cause it is expected that all events will be in the same area
2) Implementation of ES at a Local Company => All Events makes sense as events would be within the city

Challenge is when implementing for

1) Dating Website (Generally Expected to be at a Country level than a City level) => A user would be looking at events by city right? I in most probability would like to look at Events in New York only when I live in New York cause I can go to them. Events in Los Angeles - good to know but I will search for them.

2) Implementation of Events at an MNC => Employee are located across the world (suppose). As an employee I would only like to know of events in my local company and not in the Los Angeles branch. I can look at All Events if required.

I think admin should have the option of selecting the default list *All Events or Nearby" based on type of implementation primarily to make it user friendly. In fact more than distance (in my expereince most people are not aware of how far they are located from other places) it is filtering by location that matters.....

I tried to be succint in response but failed Although I hope to have emphasized on importance of default viewing by location for events. The closer I am to an event the more likely I am to go for it if I like it....

Cheers
Avinash

Hello Avinash,

You need to understand that we are not building EasySocial specifically for your needs EasySocial is developed in a generic way where you guys could then customize it however you want. There are tons of different usages and implementation of EasySocial and we can't just be building features that works for you and not everyone else.

Hi Mark,

Apologies if you felt I was looking for my needs to be met . I was just trying to understand the need for preference of all events over nearby events.

Cheers
Avinash

My point of view on it is "do more with the same number of clicks". Rather than a "Near By" filter which limits you to a single view, a distance from you drop down menu makes much more sense considering that it consolidates it into one box, allows you to search other filters and distance from you at the same time. In the example I'm describing the drop down box would have a default of "any" so that all events displayed. While detecting a user's location is pretty cool, grabbing the data from a user's profile in my opinion is more accurate (when websites request my location they are one city off due to my internet provider). The location grabber part isn't as big of a deal.

I'm with Mark that it makes sense to show all the events at once. With the method I described, a mod could be made to have the distance from you drop down to have a preselected value. This way everyone would get what they want without compromising the integrity of EasySocial.

Interesting post. How would / should this work on ES mobile?

Data-driven geolocation content access is here and hopefully ES may make available geolocation content alerts in the future as well. EventBrite, Meetup, and Brown Paper Tickets all show a mosaic of events right on the homepage tied to the users's current location --- this level of content pruning occurring prior to the application of any filters. Are they responding to an identified market opportunity / customer preference or is this just the latest fashion? I think it means those meeting/event sites get that it's all about location, location, location. The Pew Institute reports that “74% of adult smartphone owners ages 18 and older say they use their phone to get directions or other information based on their current location.”

Taking the question of any particular button or feature out of the equation to focus on the forest rather than the tree, I wanted to ask you what's the best practice for ES to deliver "nearby events" to their customers who rely on their mobile devices as vital sources of information upon which they make an increasing number of decisions about how to spend their time and money?

Is Josh's proposed method the "best practice" in this regard? What are some other approaches / ideas?

Hi,

Technically you can actually create a menu item for Events (under EasySocial -> Events), and set the default filter to use. This will achieve the effect that you want where clicking on event listing page will use nearby events filter as default.

Currently the nearby filter is missing from the menu item and I will add it into the next version.

Refer to attached screenshot.

Eileen, nice post. Yeah, I'm convinced that "near by" should have precedence upon the first view (a little different from what I originally wrote). This would then create the need to have another filter called "Latest Events" so that you could see the newest ones. Location is very important, bringing relevant events to a user is more important than showing the latest ones.

Edit: Jason brought in a good solution. The city/event name search will eventually be needed.

Thanks Jason, I'll look for the nearby filter and Josh for the insight re: the related need then to consider the "timeliness" of event information.

Thanks for the heads up on this Josh