AOL announced today the launch of When.com, a new hyper-local online event guide that enables users to search and browse for a wide range of events in their local area, including kids and family activities, community events, live performances, sporting events and many others.

Each event listing includes detailed information, reviews, maps and directions from MapQuest, and when applicable, links to purchase tickets. Users can also easily bookmark events or add them to their AOL, Google, Outlook or Yahoo Calendar.

When.com is a little different than most local search engines. There are three search fields for finding things to do and places to visit – what, when and where.

Telling us what you like is the best way to find what your are looking for when searching for things to do, local attractions and performers coming to town.

If you’d like, tell us when you want to go out and we’ll limit the results to that time period. Traveling or curious what’s going on elsewhere? Click Advanced Search and change where.

“Whether you’re looking for events that are suitable for the whole family, something to do on a Friday night or ways to entertain out of town guests, when.com makes it easy for users to find where to go and what to do in their community or places they are traveling to,” said Chris Spanos, General Manager of AOL Local and Search Verticals. “When.com is also a powerful way for event organizers and advertisers to reach and connect with a targeted audience by providing them the ability to quickly and easily submit their events right from the when.com homepage.”

Events on when.com are searchable by time (today, tomorrow, next seven days, etc.), type (Arts and Crafts, Community, Dance, etc.) and by geographic area. Users can easily browse through events by using navigation tabs along the top and left-hand side of the page, or search for events by using the convenient search box at the top of the page.

Event organizers can list their events at no charge by creating a free when.com account and developing an events page. More information on adding events to when.com is available on the site’s Help page.

In the coming weeks, additional when.com features will be rolled out including a when.com widget that can be added to any social networking page and a new “MyWhen” feature that will enable users to save events to their own when.com calendar and receive alerts and reminders for upcoming events. In addition, content from when.com will be integrated across MapQuest Local, AOL CityGuide, AOL Travel and other AOL websites.

When.com is powered by Zvents, a local search engine powering a network of hundreds of Web and mobile partners, featuring event listings to promote local businesses.

When.com is the latest addition to the growing AOL Local Network, which is the largest online local network with a monthly reach of 56 million unduplicated unique visitors.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 3rd, 2008 at 4:35 pm and is filed under Majors, Newcomers, Verticals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.