The Weekly IST List Gets a Facelift

In our ongoing efforts to make it as easy and intuitive for you folks to see just what's going on around town, today we're pleased to launch the newest version of our Weekly IST List.

Instead of appearing on the front page with the rest of our daily articles, the Weekly IST List now has its own dedicated place on the site: you can access it through the navigation menu at the top, or by pointing your browsers to:

http://www.austinist.com/istlist

The first thing you'll notice is that we're now breaking down events by day of the week--if you ask us, it's much easier to read the listings this way. Fans of the older single-page listings can still get those by clicking on "List View," or at:

http://www.austinist.com/istlist2

What's more, you can now check out the IST List when you're on the go! Anyone with a Blackberry or similarly internet-equipped phone can access a specially-formatted mobile version of the IST List by bookmarking:

http://www.austinist.com/istlistgo

And, of course, for our RSS subscribers, we're now offering a separate channel dedicated to the IST List. It's over here:

http://austinist.com/istlist.php

Some features that are carried over from the old version, new or in development:

Click on a listing to find out more information. This will either direct you to the venue's website/Myspace or a similarly relevant page.
Add this event to your Google Calendar. We're big fans of the GCal at the IST, as you can set up your account to allow them to send you SMS reminders on the day of an event.
Look up a location on Google Maps. For the time being, clicking on this brings up the most reasonable locations around Austin, based on the venue names that we've given to Google. It works pretty well about eighty percent of the time, but certain locations (like Triangle Park and more complicated names) might turn up something wacky. We recommend that you double check an address by clicking on the listing itself. Eventually, we'll have this set up more like our SXSW Interactive Map, but that probably won't happen until after the next Rock the Casbah.
See what's recommended by Austinist's editorial staff
(Future) Download artist mp3s, view bios, and more
(Future) Access YouTube trailers and clips

As always, we'd love to hear any comments, suggestions, and general rants and raves. Send 'em over!

Photo by Matt Wright on flickr

Contact the author of this article or email tips@austinist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Allen Y Chen in Arts & Entertainment on July 9, 2007 9:15 AM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

Allen Y Chen

triman--

I'm confused about what problem you're facing. We do have a dedicated RSS feed for just the IST list, which you can access here:

http://austinist.com/istlist.php

It's been tested and should work correctly in Sage, Netvibes, FeedDemon, NetNewsWire, Bloglines, and Google Reader, although we're currently feeding each day's list as a separate entry (we're still deciding whether this is a better approach than having the entire week's listings show up in one giant post).

When you say "choice for either the list or the mobile links," my best guess is that you're grabbing a different link than the one above, because the RSS feed is generated using a separate script that contains neither "list" nor "mobile" links.

But either way, let us know as this may be a bug that we should look into!

triman

The RSS feeds are definitely a retro grade step from what I can see for those of us who don't want to be wired all the time.

Previously the daily/weekly lists used to be fed as part of the RSS feed, each item would be on the feed and if you wanted more details you could click on the link. But you could read the list when not online via a laptop or in my case PDA with the feed already updated.

Looking at today AustinIST list in my rss feed, it's empty and shows me a choice for either the list or the mobile links, both of which I have to be online to access. Sounds like a small difference, but it's like going to the place where you've always kept the telephone directory, and finding just a sign that says to call 199 for people listings, 195 for business listings - ok if you are near a phone, but not much good if you wanted the address to write a letter and have no phone.

I'm rambling, you get the idea. Can we have a RSS feed for the daily/weekly listing itself, not just an rss feed to a link that changes daily...

Room 710

Room 710 is disappointed that there isn't any room for our witty, weekly commentary and reminders of what may be missing from the Ist List. Such as:

Sat, 7.14: A night of Sympathy for the Trademark Industry, w/ Drifter (Iron Maiden!), Sabbath Judas Sabbath (Black Sabbath and Judas Priest!!), and a special free, happy hour show spectacular, the Box Spring Hogs at 8p.

And the map has us somewhere in Kingsland. Other than that, it looks sharp.

Allen Y Chen

absolutely, it'll have its own dedicated channel. we'll publish the link once the bugs have been worked out.

myname

Will the list still come via the RSS feed?

guest

The "ist" list is my favorite feature at Austinist, but what's up with other cities? I've checked most of them and I don't think any of them provide this great service. What if I want to go to L.A. and find out what's happening? Or Shanghai? Are they just not as cool as Austinist? Tell your buddies to get on it.

Allen Y Chen

good observation! our older posts won't have the updated navigation bar at the top, at least until they're refreshed. new posts should already include the updated link.

guest

Pretty cool!

guest

that is pretty hawt, but the ist list link doesn't work (for me anyway) from individual posts, cause it's got the year/month/date in the url. it only works from the homepage. might wanna check that out.