AiListings (formerly ABDs)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• How do AiListings work?
• What do AiListings look like in the app?
• Things to keep in mind with AiListings
• Getting setup to run AiListings
• Entering your AiListing information
• Reviewing your generated AiListings
• Customizing your AiListings
• Regenerating your AiListings/Fixing Failed AiListings
• For more information, please consult these additional articles

AiListings are a powerful way to use AI to automatically generate POIs in Driftscape. Our automated system does all the hard work of searching the internet to build an amazing POI automatically, including images, hours of operation, website, address, GPS location, and most importantly, a rich AI generated place description. AiListings work well on any place with an internet presence: businesses, attractions, museums, parks, trails, art displays, events, and more! Please contact your Driftscape sales representative if you want to add AiListings to your plan.

AiListings are created using our proprietary AI algorithm, and are based on publicly available information about each place. If a place does not have enough information on the web for it, then the AiListing may not generate properly and may require extra information from you (discussed further in this article).

Note: AiListing Sub-layers are only to be used for AiListing listings. Do not use these Sub-layers for Tours or Events, as doing so may result in these POIs being miscategorized and make them harder for your visitors to find.

How do AiListings work?

Once your organization is set up for AiListings, there are only a few simple steps needed to generate a listing for a business. 

Step 1: Choose a Sub-layer category for your AiListing

• The Driftscape team will auto-generate a list of sub-layers that represent the various categories you can assign to your AiListing listings. 

• Select the appropriate sub-layer category where you want your business listing to appear from an automatically generated list of potential categories such as Accommodations, Food & Drink and many more.

Step 2: Generate your AiListing

• Once you’ve selected the category where you’d like your listing to appear click ADD AiListing.

• Now you need to specify the business name only. You can enter other details about the business, but only the name is required.  Click ‘Add’, and our system will begin the process of searching the internet with a variety of different proprietary methods to create the best possible automated listing. Check back in a few minutes, and you’ll see the generated AiListing (Note: you may need to 'refresh' the AiListing page to see the entry):

Step 3: Review your AiListing

• Once you have generated your AiListing listing, review it.

• Your AiListing listing will include:

  • A description of the business.

  • Hours of operation for the business, if available.

  • A gallery of public photos for the business, with captions.

  • Link to a website for the business.

  • A GPS location on the map for the business.

• Generally, the best AiListing listings are for businesses that have a current and well managed Google My Business directory listing, but, as long as the business has a website or strong internet presence (such as Facebook or other social media presence), our system can create a good automated POI.

• Our system will even change the listing to indicate the business is closed, if that happens in the future!

What do AiListings look like in the app?

• By default, AiListings show up in Driftscape for Web, and the mobile app.

• But if you want to save more money, you can purchase AiListing listings that show up only in Driftscape for Web. This is useful if you have a very large number of businesses, and you want AiListings for a web embed in your website.

AiListings in the mobile app Category View:

An AiListing POI in Driftscape for Web:

An AiListingAiListing in the mobile app:

Things to keep in mind with AiListings

• Please use the default AiListing categories if we have created them for you. These provide a regularized view for the businesses, so Driftscape users know what to expect when they see this consistent branding. But it is technically possible to  create your own sub-layers, or put AiListings in any other organization under your control (and within your plan limits).

• AiListing categories focus on businesses, attractions, accommodations, museums, parks, etc.

• If you want an AiListing category that does not exist please contact your customer support representative.

• If you want more control over how your AiListing looks, then you can convert it to a regular POI/Place in the app. You can convert an AiListing into a POI (within your plan limits), and then edit it yourself. But if you do, then the automated generation and update process will not happen any more:

• You can also copy the AI generated content into the AiListing as replacement text, and then edit it directly (without converting it into a POI). Click the 'Insert Generated Description' button after editing it:

• AiListings work with things other than businesses, for example, museums, major attractions, museums, popular landmarks. This is an option if you have resource constraints and want a fast way to highlight your sites.

• AiListings work with our new auto-translation feature! All the generated content is translated into our supported languages.

Getting setup to run AiListings

• We need to know a few things to setup your account for AiListings, Your Driftscape support representative will walk you through these questions and setup your account accordingly.

  • AiListing limit: your account will be limited to the number of AiListings you have purchased in your plan. If you need more, contact your Driftscape support representative.

  • Maximum photos: by default, our system will search for up to 5 photos for each AiListing. If you want a different default for this, we can change (note: you can change this value for individual AiListing entries).

  • AiListing center location: we need to have a latitude and longitude center location for your organization’s region. We use this to determine if matching businesses are close enough to be considered a match.

  • AiListing maximum distance: this is the maximum distance in kilometers from the center location that a possible matching entry will be considered. Matches beyond that distance are not allowed to match up. This is done to ensure that our system does not confuse the business that you are trying to generate a listing for with others located elsewhere with the same or similar names. 

  • Default description: in some rare cases, we may find a match for a business but there is no description available. You can provide default text for this case (i.e. “Come visit us to learn more about this business!”). But, the description can be overridden at the AiListing level as well.

  • Description creation: We have two different ways to create the POI descriptions. 'Advanced AI descriptions' (the default), use very powerful AI functionality to create exciting and fun details, but based on available facts. If you don't like the advanced descriptions, you can choose 'Short descriptions' which does not use AI.

  • AiListing organization suffix: this is the name of your Organization, and it is added to the end of the  v sub-layers that are available for you to use. For example, “Businesses: fashion (Cabbagetown BIA)”. This is the only place/time this setting matters.

  • AiListing search site: This is either Canada or USA. Choose the country you are in.

  • AiListing general address: this is the name of your City or Region. For example, for Toronto, use “Toronto, Ontario, Canada”. This is added to the search text for AiListings where you do not specify any address (along with the name of the business).

  • AiListing closed to draft: if you want AiListings for businesses that are listed as “Permanently Closed” to no longer display, set this to ‘true’. This way, listings for businesses that have closed will be set to Draft, and no longer be visible to the public. 

Entering your AiListing information

While we gave a brief overview of how AiListings work at the beginning of this article, you will find more detailed instructions here.

Step 1: Choose a Sub-Layer Category for your AiListing

• In the Driftscape CMS, click on ORG CONTENT, and select the AiListing category Sub-Layer that matches the category for your AiListing.

• click ADD AN AiListing:

Step 2: Generate your AiListing

• Enter the name of the business, and any other optional information you would like to include.

• In the example below, just the name of the business have been entered.

• The following data can be provided for an AiListing:

  • Business Name (required): this is the name of the business for the AiListing. Try to be very exact, using the same name (in English) as used in the business website, Google My Business listing, or internet presence in general. Our system will try and pick the business whose name most closely matches the input name (i.e. they do not have to match exactly). This field will be used for the title of your AiListing, even if the business has a slightly different online name.

  • Business Address (optional): If the business name is not very unique, then adding an address may help produce an accurate AiListing. Do not add suite or unit numbers, as this can cause a very poor match since these may not be specified in a regular way. This address is added to the generated AiListing.

  • Business Website (optional): if the business does not have a Google My Business entry, or has a poor internet presence, we may not be able to find suitable information for the AiListing a. By providing a website for the business, we will use text and photos from that website to generate the AiListing. When adding the URL, make sure you copy it from the browser exactly, with the ‘https’ prefix. Also, do not specify websites to social media pages (i.e. Facebook) that require a login to access the page. Our system is unlikely to be able to scrape those pages in most cases. The website provided is added to the generated AiListing.

  • Business Location (optional): we will search for the business in your region, up to a suitable radius. Sometimes, this may find the wrong business, especially for a business with many locations, like a chain restaurant or bank. Adding a GPS location can help ensure that the map pin is put in the right location. Entering this value will override any location we might find for a matching business.

  • Maximum photos (optional): by default, 5 photos will be collected from the internet for the AiListing, in order of best match. You may want to reduce this number if the later images are incorrect. You can also increase this value if the business has more suitable online images.

  • AiListing Image Override (optional): if the automatically collected images are not suitable, or no images were obtained, you can specify one image instead with this setting. The automatic images are ignored in this case, and only this one image is added to the AiListing. If you want more control over images, convert the AiListing to a POI and edit it further. 

• Business description (optional): if you don’t like the generated description for the AiListing, you can override it here. Only plain text with line breaks are allowed. If you want more control over formatting, convert the AiListing to a POI and edit it further.

• Insert Generated Description: once an AiListing is created, you may find that you want to edit ot tweak some of the text. This can be done, by clicking the 'Insert Generated Description' button. It will copy the current generated description text into the content editor, allowing you to change it. This button is not displayed if the content has not yet been generated. Make sure you set the 'AiListing Description replacement' option to 'Replace description'.
  

• AiListing Description replacement: By default, we will use the generated description. Alternatively, you can set this option to 'Replace description', to use your own entered above. Or, you can set this to 'Append to description' to have the text you enter appended to the generated content.
  

• AiListing Description creation: The default setting of 'Advanced AI descriptions' will generate an upbeat, fun and accurate marketing content for this POI. Alternatively, you can change this setting to 'Short POI description' to not use AI to generate the POI text.
  

• Closed to draft (optional): our AiListing system can often detect when a business has permanently closed down. Turn this setting on to cause permanently closed businesses to be set to draft, so that they disappear from Driftscape.

• Operating date range (optional): the text you add here is added to the Time and Venue area at the top of the AiListing. For example, you could add “April - September”, or “summer only”.

Reviewing your generated AiListings

• Once you enter your AiListing information and click on ‘Update’, our system will begin the process of generating the AiListing in the background:

• 

• It could take several seconds to a couple of minutes, depending on the AiListing. Refreshing the CMS POI page, and the notice will disappear, when the generated content becomes available:

• The revised content can now be viewed in Driftscape for Web or the mobile apps (after the app syncs up).

Customizing your AiListings

If desired, generated AiListings can (optionally) be further customized by:

• replacing the automatically generated IMAGES with a single image of your choice/from your computer
• replacing or appending the automatically generated BUSINESS DESCRIPTION with your own description using a WYSIWYG HTML editor (similar to POI description editor).  
  • Replacing the description will fully wipe the automatically scraped business description and use your text instead. 
  • Appending the description will add your text underneath the automatically scraped business description.
• replacing or overriding the automatically generated GPS LOCATION with your own GPS address or override of it
• add the operating dates for seasonal business. (eg. May - November)
• (coming soon) ability to upload your own spreadsheet of AiListings to generate the AiListing entries
• (coming soon) ability to refresh all of your existing AiListings (with some limits to frequency)

If you require greater customization, try converting your AiListing to a POI.

Regenerating your AiListings/Fixing Failed AiListings

Sometimes an AiListing cannot be generated due to poor input information about the business or because the business has a weak presence on the internet.  In the case of a Failed AiListing, please consult Failed Automated Business Directories.

For more information, please consult these additional articles

• Failed AiListings

• Generating Multiple AiListings From A Spreadsheet