OpenTable

In an O'Reilly blog, "Envisioning RSS as a Web 2.0 platform", Mark Sigal uses OpenTable as an example of extending RSS to automatically update his calendar.

To figure out dinner plans for Friday night, I configure and subscribe to an RSS feed from OpenTable.com of Italian restaurants in SOMA (South of Market) that have 8PM reservations available for a party of two. These results are then automatically filtered according to restaurants most consistently tagged as "good restaurant" by food lovers that I trust. As reservations become available (or unavailable), they are updated in my calendar in the form of a list of verified restaurant reservation options. At any time, I can book a reservation with a click. Similarly, the calendar can be extended to include bars and nightclubs that people in my social circle are planning to be at within a given time range of the evening, including whether they will definitely or tentatively be there. I can even set a parameter so that as people in my social circle change their destination plans, I am automatically notified by SMS on my mobile phone.

Posted by Tom on September 13, 2005