Trending.info paves ‘digital sidewalk’ that leads to informed communities

As a resident of Stratford, Ontario — a small town known for its tourism, festivals and events — Randy Huitema often struggled to find relevant information about various activities taking place in his community.  He would spend time scrolling through event listings, searching out useful Twitter feeds, and looking up restaurant reviews and specials, trying to plan his weekends and evenings with his wife and three kids.

That’s when Huitema, who has worked in the web development and tech industry for more than 20 years, decided to create a solution for himself. He began by creating a list of people and businesses in Stratford who tweeted useful information about community events, and showcased all of their tweets on a single web page.

Soon enough people began to take notice. “All my friends were going ‘how’d you hear about that’ or ‘how’d you know about this?’” he said.

Though it began as a hobby and a personal tool, Huitema soon saw a demand for this information in his community. He moved into the Stratford Accelerator Centre approximately eight months ago, developing his website, Trending.info, during early mornings, lunch breaks, evenings and weekends while continuing his day job as a system administrator for the government of Perth County.

Today, Trending.Info is a publicly available service that amalgamates community-based information from various online sources. Its pages not only cover events in Stratford, but also cities as far-reaching as Dubai and Beirut, post-secondary institutions from Western University to Michigan State, and sports communities ranging from Premier League Soccer to UFC.

“It sort of creates a digital sidewalk of what’s going on in a community in real time,” said Huitema, adding that many of his users prefer not to have social media accounts, but still need a reliable source for local information. “It embraces what’s going on on social media for the non-techie people.”

Though Huitema continues to work at his day job, the company has seen tremendous growth in its first few months. Trending.info now provides information on 51 different communities, including 18 Canadian cities and towns. Huitema has plans to bring Trending.info into 17 to 20 new locations in Canada this year, as well as at least one community in all 50 states, and is currently working on a large deal in the Caribbean.

Huitema’s secret is finding community managers in each location who are knowledgeable and passionate about their beat. He uses either a licensing or franchising model that allows community managers to sell their own ads, sending a small cut back to Stratford. “We’re throwing around a number of models right now,” he said.

Perhaps the biggest testament to the usefulness of trending.info came when Famme and co., a local accounting firm which replaced the community posters hanging in its window with a large LCD screen, displaying the Stratford feed.

“As people walk by they’ll see the Trending.info Stratford page, which has been customized for (Famme and Co.) so that only the people they want followed are displayed,” he said. “People stop and watch to see what’s going on in town on their way downtown.”

Having recently hired four staff members, Huitema is planning a major overhaul of the site.

“This has been pulled together by a guy and a half over the last eight months, and now it’s expanded to five people who are passionate and they see the vision,” he said. “We’re going to do our best to make it what we hope and know it should be.”