Web 2.0 Calendars?
Mike Arrington waxes poetic about 30 Boxes, an entry in the, apparently, red-hot online calendar space.
I'm not sure I get it.
It seems to me that working even when off-line, even when away from my computer, would be top requirements for any calendar product. In other words, a downloadable application (Outlook anyone? iCal? Blackberry?)
I'd be worried if I could only access my calendar on live web connection.
Sure, GMail is hugely popular, and you could make that same argument there. But GMail lets me synch with any POP-client of which there are many. I use GMail with Apple (Mac OS X) Mail when I am at my primary computer, and over the web everywhere else (including my cell phone.)
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Comments
Came upon your post in my RSS feed.
To your question, having desktop access to your PIM data is really important. AirSet -- one of the services the Tech Crunch article mentions in the 30 Boxes article -- enables its users to import / sync to Outlook and Palm desktop. A mobile client download is also available that allows user to access, update and sync all your PIM data via mobile phone. Full disclosure: I work with AirSet.
AirSet probably shouldn't even be in a "bake off" type review about online calendars since its really a whole suite of scheduling and information sharing applications designed to help you manage all the groups in your life from a single place. It's a much more horizontal application.
Hope you'll give it a look. -- Patrick Hurley
Posted by: Patrick Hurley | March 12, 2006 01:10 PM
Pito - Check out Spongecell if you get a chance. We've got a text message / email interface that lets you interact with your calendar from your mobile phone without any installing any software.
Posted by: Marc | March 12, 2006 04:35 PM
Agreed. My wife was commenting earlier today that the next "killer app" for us would be the equivalent to our wall-hanging family calendar that we could access and update from anywhere. If it's only accessible from a AJAX-friendly browser that's hardly useful when all I have on me is my Treo 650.
Posted by: Bob | March 13, 2006 04:38 AM
I agree totally that some type of offline access would be critical.
I'm surprised the industry hasn't come up with a simple SMTP/POP3 equivalent protocols like we have for email. The model could be similarly simple.
Posted by: Dharmesh Shah | March 28, 2006 05:15 PM