[Geowanking] Store hours of operation database

[tpryor at media.mit.edu]

I never understood why openguides didn't hook into that.

Eg::

http://search.cpan.org/src/DOM/OpenGuides-0.47/lib/OpenGuides/RDF.pm

opening hours is a text field.

Open scheduling is good stuff. I would like to be able to arrange dates this
way. ;)

-Tony

Quoting Michal Migurski <mike at teczno.com>:

>> Here’s something I’m curious about, that has been a time and 
>> again problem for so many people designing “yellow pages” or 
>> trying to use such data. There’s no real store hours databases on 
>> the net since it requires such a collaboration between customers 
>> and/or store owners to provide accurate data to a “central” 
>> database. It’s a lot of work. One of the companies I worked at, we 
>> tried to create such a database in one of our products, but even 
>> with self-stamped and addressed postcards sent out to a ton of local 
>> businesses, we got very little response, even when we explained the 
>> benefits of providing their store hours. It seemed to us that MOST 
>> store owners were lazy, and didn’t like to put extra efforts in, 
>> or just couldn’t see any benefits.
>
> It seems like a natural fit (to me) for an RDF syntax that stores could
> publish on their own sites, similar to the way that creative commons
> licenses are documented or how technorati's tag feature works. Whether
> it will seem advantageous to store owners to provide such information
> isn't obvious - if you didn't get a response from direct-mailed
> postcards, I bet there was a reason that owners didn't feel it was
> worth the time ("Why don't people just call?"). Any such database will
> need to be super-accurate: I had a really lame experience with
> Enterprise Rent-a-car recently, when I planned to drop off a vehicle on
> a date that their own website listed as regular-hours. The place wasn't
> open, I had to pay for an extra day, and I learned a valuable lesson
> about picking up the phone instead of trusting a website.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------
> michal migurski- contact info, blog, and pgp key:
> sf/ca            http://mike.teczno.com/contact.html
>
> _______________________________________________
> Geowanking mailing list
> Geowanking at lists.burri.to
> http://lists.burri.to/mailman/listinfo/geowanking
>