iPhone Fringe application
Paul Farnell
I thought you folks might be interested in an iPhone (web) app I've
created called Fringe To Go.
It shows you upcoming Fringe shows for the current day, along with
descriptions, times, prices and box office telephone numbers.
I've been using it this weekend and it's proved pretty useful when out
and about. I'll probably add to it a little over the coming week or
so, but it's stable to use now.
Visit the address with your iPhone, iPod Touch or the Safari browser:
http://fringetogo.com
Cheers!
Paul.
--
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Matt Riggott
> I thought you folks might be interested in an iPhone (web) app I've
> created called Fringe To Go.
I can tell you that's been an invaluable resource over the last few
days already. Fantastic job, Paul.
One thing makes me giddy: where did you get all the data from? Is it
screen-scraped or did you get it from the Fringe via some official
channel?
M.
--
Matt Riggott (mailto:matt.r...@gmail.com).
Dictated but not read.
David Reid
> On 3 Aug 2008, at 17:13, Paul Farnell wrote:
>> I thought you folks might be interested in an iPhone (web) app I've
>> created called Fringe To Go.
>
> I can tell you that's been an invaluable resource over the last few
> days already. Fantastic job, Paul.
>
> One thing makes me giddy: where did you get all the data from? Is it
> screen-scraped or did you get it from the Fringe via some official
> channel?
Knowing where to get the data would be more useful than the app for many
of us :-)
>
> M.
>
Paul Farnell
>> I thought you folks might be interested in an iPhone (web) app I've
>> created called Fringe To Go.
>
> I can tell you that's been an invaluable resource over the last few
> days already. Fantastic job, Paul.
>
> One thing makes me giddy: where did you get all the data from? Is it
> screen-scraped or did you get it from the Fringe via some official
> channel?
Thanks Matt, that's great to hear!
The data question is a tricky one. The data wasn't via an official
channel, it was taken from the Fringe site. I have contacted them to
check that they are happy with what I am doing, but I have yet to get
any kind of response. After waiting a while, I thought I'd put it out
there anyway.
My thinking was that it is entirely non-commercial, and only serves to
sell more Fringe tickets - the Fringe box office phone number is on
every listing. There's no affiliate scheme or any financial benefit to
me whatsoever. The data is also, naturally, all on my server - so it
does not cause any additional load on the Fringe site.
Hopefully they are ok with it. Of course there's always the chance
that they *will* get back to me and ask that it be taken down. I think
that'd be a great shame, and quite unlikely to be honest. Of course
I'd oblige if they asked!
Anyhow, I'm glad you've found it useful. There's lots more that could
be done...
For example, it would be lovely to do location awareness - show me
shows that are starting in the next 2 hours within 500m of my location.
It'd also be great to link in List, Scotsman and Guardian reviews for
each show.
And, the Fringe site actually shows the number of available tickets
for each show (although slightly hidden). By tracking that figure, you
could highlight shows that were particularly popular - ones that lots
of people were buying tickets for - which would again help to filter
things down by watching those trends.
In an ideal world there'd be more metadata about each show. For
example if it's a student performance, if it's new writing, modern,
large cast, solo show, all that stuff. That would make some really
interesting connections.
And there's the sales data too of course. Only the Fringe have this,
but doing Amazon-style "people who bought tickets for this also
bought..." based on their edfringe.com account purchases would be
fascinating.
Don't get me wrong - I love sitting with a beer on a sunny (!)
afternoon and browsing the printed programme. But with 2,129 Fringe
shows it would be helpful to filter things automatically a little, in
some kind of intelligent way. Fringe To Go is my first small attempt
at that.
Anyway - I've clearly thought about this far too much recently :)