Plancast is the Future... literally

Updated EricMack 1 556 Views

Foursquare is so hung up on where we are now or where we've been... Never fear, is here to fill the void in the location-based future social networking space. Actually, it's much cooler than that, and it's beginning to pick up steam. As its name infers, Plancast is all about broadcasting your plans, just to friends or to the entire world. Think of it as a sweet combination between Twitter and an events calendar.

It also has nifty mapping features, integrates well with Facebook and Twitter and comes as an app for iPhone or Android. To see one of the best examples of Plancast at work, check out Robert .

Plancast's parent company, Worldly Developments, is made up of former TechCrunch blogger Mark Hendrickson and programmer Jay Marcyes. Since opening a public beta in late 2009, they received a lot of attention at South by Southwest in March and $800,000 in seed funding. In the ensuing months, the site has continued to grow, announcing an API earlier this summer, and receiving an ever-increasing amount of attention. This week, Ford even in New York's Herald Square.

The obvious reaction may be "why do we need another online planning tool?" John Greene at Springwise points out the key Plancast advantage:

...most of those tend to focus on formal ones; when it's just drinks and dinner being planned, Plancast is there to help make it happen.

Expect to see further integration options for Plancast soon with apps like Google Calendar and others.

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WASDted commented: nice article. I joined... +1

Dani AI

Generated

Good call by — plan-focused social activity is a different kind of intent signal than check-ins or status updates. The practical takeaway for marketers: people planning to go somewhere are farther down the decision funnel, so small frictions and clear incentives matter more than long-form promotion.

Practical, repeatable workflow:

  • Create a single-line value proposition plus one clear call-to-action (RSVP, ticket link or promo code).
  • Time the plan post to match typical planning windows for the activity (shorter windows for casual meetups; longer for conferences).
  • Use a unique promo code or landing page per plan to measure attribution precisely.
  • Capture an email or phone number at conversion so the channel isn’t the only place you own the relationship.

Developer and measurement tips:

  • If the platform offers an API or push events, prefer push over polling; design handlers to be idempotent and map external plan IDs to internal event IDs.
  • Append UTM parameters or unique tokens to outbound links so web analytics show the exact plan source and creative.
  • Track KPIs that matter: plan-to-click rate, click-to-attend (or ticket) conversion, cost per attendee, and incremental lift versus baseline channels.

Cautions and strategy notes:

  • Treat plan-focused networks as top-of-funnel or mid-funnel amplification, not the single source of truth. Build owned assets (email list, landing pages) from each event. Respect attendee privacy and only collect what’s necessary. Early adopters like signing up are useful signals, but validate with small pilots and measurable goals before committing budget or engineering resources.
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