Upcoming

Upcoming home page for New York, retrieved October 25th, 2008
Commercial?	Yes
Type of site	Events, Social Networking
Registration	Not required
Owner	Yahoo!
Created by	Andy Baio, Gordon Luk, Leonard Lin
Launched	19 September 2003

Upcoming (formerly Upcoming.org) was a social event calendar website that launched in 2003, founded by Andy Baio.^[1] On October 4, 2005, Upcoming.org was acquired by Yahoo!.^[2][3] In April 2013, Yahoo announced the retirement of Upcoming.^[4]

Features [edit]

Upcoming combines features of an event calendar and a social networking site.^[5] Primarily, the site is a searchable, browsable repository of upcoming events, such as music concerts, art exhibits, business conferences, and so on. Event information can be contributed by the user community, although an increasing percentage of event data now comes from commercial sources. Users can indicate their plans by marking that they are "going" to or "interested" in an event. Users may also establish "friend" relationships with each other and receive notifications about what their friends are planning.^[6] Upcoming also offers users reminders via email or SMS when a particular event is about to occur.

The site switched to the Yahoo! user accounts system in early 2007, and changed its domain name to upcoming.yahoo.com. At the same time, the site formally changed its name from "Upcoming.org" to simply "Upcoming".^[7][8] Despite this, many users of the site still link to and refer to the site as "Upcoming.org".

Upcoming uses iCalendar, RSS, and GeoRSS for content syndication and supports an open API for searching or submitting event data. It also uses hCalendar microformats, so that events can be downloaded directly into calendar applications.^[9] Finally, users can also post badges on their own websites, powered by Javascript, which list all their Upcoming events.^[10]

Community [edit]

As of 2008, the overwhelming majority of users and events are located in North America, particularly among fans of independent music, web technologists, or the San Francisco Bay Area generally. However, Upcoming users can be found almost anywhere on the globe,^[11] often submitting event data in their local language. Upcoming is fully capable of storing and searching multilingual content, although the site supports only a US-English interface.

Competitors and Influence [edit]

At least one competitor, known as Eventful, has emerged since Upcoming was launched in 2003. Some of the music sites later branched out into this space, such as last.fm and iLike, building on their knowledge of their users' tastes. Facebook's event system is very much like a simplified version of Upcoming's, although it is more typically used for informal or private get-togethers. Other close competitors include zevents, GoBop, and Event Crazy.

References [edit]

External links [edit]

• Java client library for Yahoo Upcoming

v t e Yahoo! Inc. Advertising APT from Yahoo! Panama Right Media Search Marketing Development Developer Network Next Query Language UI Library Web portal and search engine Auctions (Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan) Autos BOSS Directory Finance Games Health Jobs Kelkoo Local Maps Movies Music Music Radio News omg! Real Estate Search Screen Shine Shopping Sports Time Capsule Travel TV Wallet Communication 360°(Vietnam only) Answers Groups Mail Rivals Upcoming Voice Publishing Fire Eagle Flickr GeoCities (Japan only) Pipes Voices Software Axis FoxyTunes Messenger versions Toolbar Co-branded ISPs AT&T BT Rogers Discontinued or sold 360°(outside Vietnam) Babel Fish Briefcase blo.gs Broadcast.com Buzz Delicious Dialpad Gallery GeoCities (outside of Japan) Go/Mobile JumpCut Kickstart Live Meme Mash Music Jukebox Music Unlimited MyBlogLog Photos Podcasts Publisher Network RocketMail SearchMonkey The All-Seeing Eye WebRing Widgets Corporate Acquisitions Criticism Annual revenue  US$4.98 billion (2011) Employees 14,100 (2011) Stock symbol NASDAQ: YHOO Website Yahoo.com