Ask HN: Rate my startup: EditConf - wiki style tech events, aggregation, and search | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Rate my startup: EditConf - wiki style tech events, aggregation, and search

editconf.com

35 pointsjonnytran18 comments

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I used it to add the next Ruby Users of Minnesota meeting:

http://editconf.com/events/348:ruby-users-of-minnesota-febru...

Nice job on making it really easy to add events. Hopefully you have a plan for spam.

EDIT: I noticed you have at least a few duplicates, like these:

http://editconf.com/events/220:railsconf-2009

http://editconf.com/events/281:railsconf-2009

Cool, thanks. I'm glad you found it easy.

I zapped that dupe. If you find any more I'll be glad to take care of them also. Eventually we'd like to add a version-control style merge, but we're focusing on other things for now.

I'd like to be able to filter by region, maybe by pointing at the map. (By the way, I don't like the moving map at all, but that's probably just my personal dislike of things moving on my screen)

The second thing I noticed is that not all events are found when I search for them. There's this Black Hat DC event in Washington but when I search for "Washington" it doesn't show up even though "Washington" is literally mentioned on the event's details page.

Very cool ... I'm going to do something similar for the photography industry this week.

One thing I would really like to see: a link/menu on the home page that lets me choose my state. Then show all the events in said state ... seeing all events around the world is cool, but the ones I could drive to are especially important. Also, I'd like to have a nice URL for that (like editconf.com/states/OR)

Also, it would be nice to have an RSS feed of all events.

This is very minor, but I would change the style of the ADD EVENT button. Red is so scary! :)

We are working on filtering by location. I wish it were done already. But for now, we are posting all events to Twitter http://twitter.com/editconf Tumblr http://editconf.tumblr.com/ and FriendFeed http://friendfeed.com/editconf so you can use one of them for a feed.

Good luck on your photography version!

I'd love to take a look at this when you have it ready. Email me at <my hackernews username> @ gmail. I'll even blog about it!

Will do ... maybe we can team up on some projects in the future. (I've got a ton of photo-related apps in the pipeline)

That could be cool. Thanks

Some people end up directly on event pages. For those people, it would be really useful if you could add links to other local confs and an address box to get driving directions so you can quickly see how long it would take to get there.

I LOVE the fading red around the "Add Event" button. Makes me want to add an event even though I don't know of any!

I haven't reviewed the rest of the app yet. That button is like the Hypnotoad.

Very clean and intuitive Jonathan!

From the design perspective I would:

1) change to text color of the header (black on dark gray is not easy to read) 2) You have two search inputs - kick one and move the events section up. 3) To see event details you just have to click the row/div and not a link which is good - show it by highlighting on mouseover. 4) You have some gems for your target audience hidden in your footer - display them more prominently.

I really like this but I want to be able to setup alerts for new events that are added matching particular locations and keywords. Otherwise although I like the site and I found a few useful events, I'm unlikely to come back just because I won't remember to.

Would also love to get you a custom version of WebMynd which will stick your event search results on the right hand side of Google, if you're interested...

That's really the next feature we are working on. We are planning to add filtering based on different aspects -- basically, the 4 W's: who, what, when, where -- and give you a feed of it (and eventually webhook).

What do I have to do to get a custom version of WebMynd?

How is this different from Upcoming?

Hopefully, since this is just the start of it, it will differentiate itself from upcoming, and any other sites out there. I think it was Matt Mullenwag who said something to the like of "If you're competing against a giant company, well, you're set." Yahoo! owns Upcoming, does it get the treatment, feature updates and dedication that it had when it was a startup? Or does it fall by the wayside as the founders are working on other things for Yahoo!?

EditConf might not be anything different now, but I bet they have some innovative ideas. Plus, it's tech focused, so that's different.

You said it, Andrew. Because we are focused only on tech events, we can do things that Upcoming can't. We have a few ideas up our sleeve, so stay tuned.

Change the colors?

Was there something specific you'd like? The entire palette for the site or for specific parts? We'd love to hear more about what you think would improve it. Thanks for the feedback.

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