Facebook finally gets serious about events

One of the consistently repeated startup “attempts” is the so-called “Things to Do” app. “Hey, what can I do this weekend?”. My company goby was one of the earlier attempts. After a pretty good run we failed to get enough traction to get to critical mass, and sold the company to Telenav.

I’ve kept a “graveyard” list of companies who’ve tried (drop me a note if you want a copy). It’s over 150 companies. Seriously. If you’re thinking about trying to create this company….don’t. Just don’t. I’ve written about why elsewhere, but in a nutshell: it’s a feature, not a product. It’s too hard to build a brand and a company around a use case that only happens every month or so.

Now, a big brand can do it. Say, Facebook. Whose events product has sucked for years, even as they amassed the single largest repository of events anywhere. It looks like, finally, they are starting to get serious about it, with a major update to their IOS app that lets you browse for events by category, just like a big kid. And with their database of your interests, expect pretty good personalization on top of that, sooner or later.

(BTW. Looking for something to do this weekend? Try reading a great book via The Hawaii Project)!