One of the things I've had to deal with in getting the WebEventSearch.com site up and running is that there are no standards for what information is included in webcast/webinar announcements nor for how it is expressed. This makes it impossible to share the information across sites electronically, sort and classify events automatically, or perform automated searches through the information.
In creating a standard search utility for webcast events, I had to define a set of fields and category values to use for all listings. This allows users to perform searches on fields such as event date (which can be converted to their local timezone) or topic category.
I want companies with many events to be able to bulk-load them into the WebEventSearch.com database to allow universal searching from a single access point. To do this effectively, we need a standard for defining and listing the event information.
I plan to create an XML schema definition that all companies can use to list and feed events. If you work with multiple event listings and would like to help define and refine the standard, contact me via email at kmolay[at]wsuccess.com. I would welcome outside perspectives.
Technorati Tags: search, search engine, web conference, webcast, webinar, XML standards
