Upcoming

Upcoming is an online community which is meant to help people find events and share them with their friends. It provides timely information to users about the events happening around them and in nearby places. One can learn about what kind of activities or events their friends are attending. But it gives the option to keep one's events private for his/her own reference. One can browse through events on weekly or monthly basis or all events can be viewed at one go also. The events have been arranged under different categories as music, education, commercial and sports. Flickr users can upload pictures of events they attended or organized and share them with others. Upcoming lists down popular events and popular places. Also, one can join different groups on the basis of his/her interest or location or any other criteria. It is an online community on a global level. It allows self promotion as well, i.e. artists, bands, organizers or promoters can promote their events. If one missed to attend an event, he/ she can watch it on Upcoming. Based upon the events watched, upcoming keeps one updated about similar events. Comments can be added to learn and also inform others about the events. Thus, upcoming is a web based community to keep its users updated about the events and also keeps a tab of what their friends are doing.

Upcoming was formerly known as Upcoming.org and was launched in September 2003. It was founded by Andy Baio along with Gordon Luk and Leonard Lin. The developers of Upcoming worked on it during their free times because they liked what they were developing and enjoyed it. On October 4, 2005 it was acquired by Yahoo. The name was changed to Upcoming.

Upcoming is not much different from other event planning websites. It performs the same function of providing information about upcoming events. The features are more or less the same like searching for events, sharing them with friends, joining groups, uploading photos etc. Therefore, it does not provide anything fresh or different from what is already available on the web in the same class.

Upcoming has a nice clean look. the site does not look crowded or fussy. Events have been arranged separately under different headings. The yellow font used for writing the logo comes up nicely on a dark red banner. The background has been kept white on which text appears in blue, black and yellow. Instructions and information have been included in simple language. The features are easy to understand as well. Pages can be easily browsed.

The registration process is a bit lengthy. One needs to provide his/her name, gender, birth date, country and code. Then, email id and password and an alternate id. Also one security question has to be answered. Next the user has to choose a screen name different from his/her yahoo id. This completes the registration process. Upon getting registered the user can add events to his/her watchlist, write in friend's scrapbooks and view friend's events. Signing up is a time consuming process here as many times ids might be already taken and not available for others. This requires entering the information again and again.

Services of Upcoming come free of charge. They make money through advertisements. Upcoming was acquired by Yahoo.

Upcoming acts like an events calendar. It keeps one informed about the upcoming events like concerts, matches, parties and similar occasions. Upcoming is thus recommended to all those who want to keep a track of all the events taking place in one's town and also know that what their friends are up to. It will help one search for events of their choice and share them with their friends.

http://upcoming.yahoo.com/