Here are a few of the new features we added:

Search for Matches: This runs a quick search of the existing Joobili database to prevent uploading duplicate events. It was really frustrating for some of you who spent a lot of time uploading an event only to have it be denied by the Joobili editors because it was already in the system. Hopefully this solves that issue.

Recurring Date: Most Joobili events are annual occurrences so we wanted to create a way to automatically set future dates assuming your event happens on a fixed schedule.

Category Limits: You can now select 1 main category and max 2 additional categories for your event. A few people were setting every possible category to describe their event which really doesn’t help us know what the event is all about. Sure, almost all events serve food, but that doesn’t mean you need to mark it as a Food/Drink festival. Hopefully this changes will improve the quality of your event searches.

Attendance & Tickets: We added two new fields, one for how many people typically attend the event and another for whether it is free or requires tickets. This will eventually allow us to better filter your inspirations beyond just dates and interests. Sometimes you are looking for a cheap thrill and you want to only search free events. Sometimes you want some solitude so you search for events with small crowds. There is a lot of potential here and we’re working on some more cool ideas for more expanding your travel inspiration options on Joobili.

Feel free to upload an event and let us know how it goes. As always, feedback is welcomed and needed.

This one came as a total shock. Every year PC Magazine selects the top 100 websites of the year as voted by their readers and editors. The list is a mix of the most popular sites on the Internet like Google, Amazon, Wikipedia, etc. and new sites with strong potential like…well, Joobili. It is a real honor (and pleasant surprise) to find ourselves among such elite company. We’ve always believed we were on to something with Joobili’s timely travel approach, but it’s really gratifying when people with a lot more experience in the tech scene feel equally optimistic about Joobili’s prospects. Thanks PC Magazine, and thanks to all of you for helping Joobili take off.

Congrats to Joobili member “Dolphin” for winning the Sziget ticket promotion. Dolphin was Joobili’s official promoter of the Puck Fair in Ireland and he recruited a large crew of friends to GoList the event on Joobili. Now he and a friend will be spending a week relaxing and rocking to Lily Allen, Fatboy Slim, Placebo,  The Offspring and Faith No More at Sziget Festival in Budapest. We’d like to also thank all the new Joobili members and promoters who participated in the contest…there is always next year.

And speaking of Puck Fair, it appears the star of the show, a royal goat, is not that easy to locate. According to this story the original goat was only able to get a 4 day visa. Hopefully they get this sorted out and find a new goat so Dolphin’s efforts were not in vain.

Harrods is the world’s  most luxurious shopping destination and not where you would normally come to find a bargin. But Joobili is not about ‘normal’ so we’re here to remind you there is just one week left in the annual Harrods Summer Sale. Every premium fashion brand with an Italian name (and even those without) is discounted up to 50% during this special sale. The opening day of the sale is more anticipated than Christmas for fashonistas looking to grab high fashions at low prices. Store hours are extended during the annual Summer Sale to accomodate the extra traffic. If you’re serious about fashion it’s worth the trip to London. Otherwise, you can still find a limited stock of sale items that can be purchased through Harrods online. Happy shopping!

As you know, Joobili is always on the look out for cool festivals. Well, we just discovered a little gem that most people haven’t heard of…yet. The GrassRoots Eco Music Festival will kick off on August 1 in the shadow of the Val de la Mare reservoir on the island of Jersey. What’s so cool about the festival you ask? GrassRoots combines great music with a mission to make sure the event is as green as the grass it sits on. And they mean it, we’re talking carbon offsets, a plastic-free eco village, green tickets, recycle stations and greener fuel for the generators. There is even an Green Police squad to (politely) enforce the ‘greeness’.

These days it’s increasingly popular to ‘go green’ but a lot of it is green marketing rather than eco action. It’s refreshing to find a festival that’s really trying to make a difference by letting actions speak louder than words. Whether you’re going for the groove or the green (or both) you won’t be disappointed.

Performer line up

Purchase Tickets

Another day, another travel award, and thanks to your help, Joobili is a finalist again. We are among four teams selected as the best Web 2.0 website. What makes this one more special to us is the finalists were decided by online voting rather than a “panel of industry experts”. We finished second in the online voting going up against some great sites that have been around a lot longer than we have. Thanks for your votes. If you’re the kind that likes the “panel of industry experts” you’ll be relieved to know such a panel will make the final decision and announce the winner tomorrow. Keep you fingers crossed for us.

We just launched a contest to give away two 6-day tickets (300 EUR value) to Sziget Festival, August 12-17. This is one of Europe’s biggest summer festivals with 2009 headliners like The Prodigy, Fatboy Slim, Placebo, Klaxons, Offspring, Snow Patrol and more. It all takes place on a island in the middle of the Danube in downtown Budapest, Hungary.

Winning the tickets is simple. Joobili created a list of 16 summer events that need promoting. Pick your favorite from the list to become the ‘official promoter’. Once you have your event, you just need to get as many people as you can to add your event to their own Joobili GoList. The promoter who is able to get the most GoListers for their event by the July 15 deadline will win the Sziget tickets. Like I said, pretty simple. Get started by selecting your event from the Events List.

A few things that are cool about this job:

• Write about Europe’s coolest festivals and events.
• No need to follow a strict style guide, just be yourself.
• Work from anywhere with an internet connection: home, beach, workplace (not really), school, wherever.
• Flexible hours…could be 40 hrs could be 4 hrs per week, it’s up to you.

A couple things that suck about this job:

• No free trips to visit  festivals and events.
• No getting rich from this job. Frankly the pay isn’t the best. We can offer a little more money for experienced writers and people who can work longer hours, but we’re still a startup and until we get rich, you won’t get rich.

Please spread the word to your writer friends. Drop us an email introducing yourself:  jobs@joobili.com

I not much of what you’d call a “greenthumb” but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a good garden when I see one. So it shouldn’t come as a total shock that this week’s ‘where I’d rather be’ post is Dublin’s Bloom Day. Actually it’s not one day, it’s five days of blooming beauty ending on Monday. Hosted by Bord Bia, Bloom is taking place this year May 28th – June 1st in the Phoenix Park and is set to attract over 50,000 visitors. There will be something for everyone with wonderful gardens, floral displays, farmers market, entertainment stages, family fun zone and so much more. Bloom 2009 will feature more than 20 superb show gardens from Ireland’s top horticultural talent. The show gardens will be complemented by a spectacular floral pavilion featuring the best of Irish plants and flowers. Bloom organizers boast of getting to meet with “Ireland’s top celebrity gardeners”. I’m curious to know what a celebrity gardener is like. I’m not expecting a swarm of paparazzi, but is it the type of person you’d ask an autograph from? Maybe they’ll sign your garden shovel!

More Dublin info