Foursquare Gets Better For Business: You Can Now Add Events To Your Venue

1477700067_96213cf601_zThere are reasons why we go where we go, eat where we eat, and drink where we drink. Maybe it’s the ambience, maybe it’s that cute waitress or waiter, or maybe it’s karaoke night. Today, Foursquare has announced that businesses can now add events to their venues. This is a pretty huge step towards helping you find new places to go and tell your friends about why you go there…without doing any work.

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Eventster Adds Social Signals To Help You Find Events You’ll Like, Know Which To Avoid

eventster-ipad-socialEventster, the iOS app which aggregates events across North America and Europe, is rolling out a big update today which it hopes will further differentiate its event listings application from numerous competitors. The update uses semantic technologies to guess at the relevant keywords surrounding an event in order to integrate social media postings from Twitter, YouTube and Instagram in real-time alongside the listing.

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Facebook Releases “Weddings and Celebrations” Feature, Maturing With Executives

Weddings_CelebrationsFacebook released a new “Weddings and Celebrations” feature that will display special events, starting with engagements and weddings, along with friends’ birthdays on the social network.

The feature, which begins rolling out today, is automated based off the changing of a relationship status to “engaged” or “married.” Appearing above birthdays on the homepage, users can click on the update and congratulate either member of the couple, as well as add one of the members as a friend, without leaving the page.

Yesterday, Facebook redesigned its events page, adding list and calendar views. However, a Facebook spokesperson tells us that “Weddings and Celebrations” will not be added to the list or calendar views. It will only appear on the homepage.

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After Seed Labs, Cvent Snags CrowdCompass For $10M To Double Down On Mobile Event Apps

Screen shot 2012-06-19 at 4.34.57 AMIt’s been an active seven days for Cvent, one of the largest event management companies in the world you’ve never heard of. The company, which offers web-based software for online event registration, management and more, has been on a mission to go beyond B2B services. Since raising $136 million last year, Cvent has re-focused on more consumer-facing event solutions, especially on mobile. As part of this new direction, Cvent made its first-ever acquisition last week, scooping up Austin-based event app developer Seed Labs for $4.2 million.

Given its new consumer aspirations, venture backing and strong recent growth, we said last week that “it wouldn’t be surprising to see Cvent continue making strategic acquisitions” in the near future. Although we are soothsayers, we didn’t expect it to be so soon.

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Woofound’s Social Events App Matches People To Places Based On Personality

sliderWoofound, a Maryland-based startup aiming to match your personality to things you want to do, is today launching its iOS application nationwide. The app turns rating activities, places and restaurants into a simple, visual game in order to serve up highly personalized recommendations. You rate things by tapping or clicking “Me” or “Not Me” on the items suggested – it feels something like a “Hot or Not” for your interests, in fact.

In addition to today’s launch, the company is also announcing it has now raised over $1 million in funding, from private investors and angel sources.

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Third Pivot’s The Charm? Events Site Ravn Becomes Flash Sales Site Touch Of Modern

ravn_events_2No one ever called a limit on the number pivots a company can do, right? So here’s the latest at a company we’ve been watching for a while now. RAVN, an event planning and sharing app that itself was the product of a pivot from the developers behind “experiences marketplace” Skyara, has sent a letter out to its users telling them that the app is getting shut down at the end of this month. In RAVN’s place, the founders are starting up yet another business — their third — also loosely based around events but with a decidedly more commercial bent: a design flash sales site called Touch of Modern.

“After two years of building a new marketplace for experiences, we have decided that it is time to close down RAVN. The website and mobile app will completely stop working by the end of the month,” the RAVN team wrote in the note to users.

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Reminder: The TC DC Mini-Meetup Is Tonight

virginia-is-for-loversJust a reminder: today is the most important day of the year. It’s TC DC Mini Meet-up Night! We’re here in DC and we’re looking forward to meeting with you all at RFD (810 7th St NW) at 6pm for some networking, some fun, and some start-up talk.

I’ve been doing these things in the US and Europe for a few years now and my style is very laid back and very organic. This is a very informal event – we won’t be having speeches, panels, or wonkery. We’re here to hear pitches, talk tech, and discuss what you’ve been up to. Come along even if you have nothing to launch. After all, maybe you’ll meet your next start-up partner tonight.

As a special bonus, DC meet-up folks will get to meet our new co-editor, Eric Eldon, who is coming in from San Francisco and who will be in DC with us that evening.

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Facebook Launches Suggested Events Feature Based On Checkins

Facebook Suggested EventsWe’re creatures of habit. We go where we’ve already gone. That’s why Facebook’s new Suggested Events feature I just discovered is so powerful — it knows where we’ve been thanks to our checkins. Replacing the old Friends’ Events sub-tab of the home page’s Events bookmark, Suggested Events helps you discover things to do that take place at venues you’ve checked in to, that friends are RSVP’d to, that are hosted by Pages you Like, or a combination. The feature could reduce the need third-party event discovery apps, and get more people out of their houses to attend concerts, club nights, and conferences.

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