TurnOut

TurnOut required users to login using their Facebook accounts in order to access the Search and Page Event APIs.

The APIs were used to automatically extract nightlife-related pages and events:

1. Search for all business pages within a radius of the city centre.
2. Score each page based on a set of nightlife-related keywords to identify relevant pages.
3. For each event hosted by each page, request the title, description, location, timings and guest list.

Recommended events were displayed in a ranked list, providing information about the event, its location, opening times, music genres and the attendees. Events up to a week in advance were available.

The guest list data would include a list of names and their RSVP status. I contacted each venue to gather the capacity figures and used these to rank the busyness of the event.

I also used a hardcoded list of male and female names to render an approximate gender split* (see blue/pink background).

Many event descriptions would mention genres of music. I matched these against a database of genres and alternative spellings (e.g. Drum & Bass and DnB) to extract a concise set of genres for each event.

A common deciding factor for attending an event was whether user's friends are also going, so TurnOut would show which of their friends were also attending.

On the settings screen, users could set their preferred music genres and dating preferences which would contribute to the recommendation algorithm.

Sadly, in response to the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook shut down their Page Event API leading to the deprecation of TurnOut.

I regularly check for new avenues that can bring TurnOut back to life. Please get in touch if you have any leads.