January 15, 2009

Today marks the one year anniversary of the launch of this site - happy birthday Happenstand! I wasn't really sure what exactly I was doing or why or how long it would last when I turned the lights on and put the "Open" sign out front, but I have to say I'm really pleased with how far things have come. Special thanks to all the folks that have sent in their event info and suggestions of how to make the site better. It's been a fun project to work on and I've learned a ton by doing it. Currently I am talking with some peeps about more ways of making it more better as well as using Happenstand event and directory info in other places outside of the website. Very exciting so stay tuned for more on that later!

Otherwise, over the last couple of weeks I've rolled out some small but noteworthy updates:

• You may have noticed the Google ads. I'm not a big fan of ads (who is really?), but I figured if they were done in a not-too-annoying fashion, I might be able to offset some of my hosting, emailing and technical expenses. $0.24 down so far! I will always do my best to make sure they do not interfere with or detract from the important stuff on any given page.
• I improved the design of events in the small lists so you get more information up front and a brief excerpt with an image on rollover. I think it looks a lot better.
• On artist, venue and event pages there is a new "Share this" button that opens a little panel with tons of ways to post info to third party sites or email a link to a page to someone. It's a really easy way to post something to Facebook, for example, if you want to share a page with friends.
• For a while now there has been the option to send event info to Google or Yahoo calendars on event detail pages. I just added a third option supported by most desktop calendar clients - iCalendar. You may have to download the file and drag it into your calendar program depending on how your browser is set up to handle ".ics" files. Give it a shot and let me know if you have any problems or suggestions.
• Related to the external calendar options noted above, you can now add what I call "dependent" events to external calendars as well. These types of events include artists' talks, receptions, etc. that are part of a larger show or event. Just look for the text link "Add to calendar" under the special event dates.

Thanks again and here's hoping for another great year ahead!

Posted by Lucas at 4:30pm