Community Megaphone and UGSS

Two great apps that work great together:

“Hey, you got your event in my UGSS!”

“No, you got your event in my Community Megaphone!”

If you’re a developer looking for events, or a community leader looking to get your events promoted, one challenge you face is figuring out where it makes sense for you to find and/or promote events.

Today, I’m pleased to announce that Community Megaphone, the event promotion/discovery site/engine I wrote, and User Group Support Services (UGSS – aka, the site formerly known as Codezone) have taken steps to reduce this challenge by integrating our event listings.

WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH THESE SITES?

Community Megaphone was designed as a simple, low-friction engine for event discovery and promotion. Simple to add events, and lots of ways (site, RSS, iCalendar, gadget, etc.) to promote them. No registration is required to find or add sites via the web site.

UGSS is a support site for user groups, providing event management, speaker registry, presentation content, SWAG kits, and more. Registration is required, but more is offered in exchange.

SO WHAT’S THE NEWS?

As of yesterday, any event* added to Community Megaphone will be automatically synced with the UGSS Event Calendar. And any US-based event added to the UGSS calendar will be automatically synced with Community Megaphone.

This allows attendees to find more events, and organizers to reach more attendees, regardless of which system you wish to use.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!!!

As an added bonus, I’m planning to make the Web Service API used for the UGSS sync available to event organizers so they can add their events to Community Megaphone programmatically. If you’re interested in being an early adopter, please let me know, and I’ll get you set up. I’ll be posting instructions and tools for signing up for the API soon at Community Megaphone.

* UGSS only currently supports developer and IT Pro events…events marked only for a Public Sector audience will not be synced with UGSS.