My Gadget Blog

Friday, March 24, 2006

Collaborative calendars

Not only are there calendars available online to manage your schedule, but in these days of collaboration, calendars are also designed to not only manage your calendar, but in conjunction with others.

Calendar
Pros
Cons
URL
Airset
  • Can sync with phones
  • Drag and drop
  • Click on date for adding new event
  • Very intuitive way of collaboration
  • Maximum flexibility in sharing events
  • Search capability
  • Little bit slow
  • Cannot customize look
  • Color-coding fixed by calendar
www.airset.com

www.airset.com/User/Cal.jsp?gi=YdJCMGlxLgcP&all=0
30boxes
  • Click on date for adding new event
  • Tag and search capability
  • Ability to highlight selected tags
  • Ability to "publish" calendar
  • Supports "badges"
  • Only 3 themes for customizing look
  • No drag and drop
  • Events can only be marked private or not private
  • Does not show time of event directly on calendar
  • URL for published calendar contains my full name (privacy concern)
  • Code for "badge" contains my full name
www.30boxes.com

http://30boxes.com/public/43896/full-name/2f7c8e146737efcd64cc9e3c7c77e5df/0/
Planzo
  • Direct typing in calendar for new events
  • Drag and drop
  • Search capability
  • Some customization available but limited to approximately 8 color selections
  • Color-coded events seem fixed per type of event
  • Privacy limited to private, none (share with all), or with "favorites".
www.planzo.com

xxxxxx.planzo.com
CalendarHub
  • Drag and drop
  • Supports "badges"
  • Tag and search capability
  • Ability to "publish" calendar
  • Cannot click date or directly type for new entry
  • Privacy limited to private, none (share with all) or with "favorites".
  • Columns in calendar representing the days of week are not equally spaced. Aesthetically, it looks odd.
  • No color-coding of events
www.calendarhub.com

www.calendarhub.com/calendar/55776/month

www.calendarhub.com/pub/xxxxxx
Trumba
  • Ability to "publish" calendar
  • Click on date for adding new event
  • For free version, no customization for look and feel (except for primary color)
  • Sharing limited to all (for those authorized) or none
  • No color-coding of events
  • No drag or drop
  • No search capability
www.trumba.com

www.trumba.com/t.aspx?e=CgAzdYV*VrG1eOBPBtwQYIzsehUA13kn5-S*H7VK2*CVig!!X

www.trumba.com/calendars/xxxxxxs_calendar
Goowy

  • Problems when adding full-day events (says end time cannot be before start time)
  • Selection of date is not used as default when adding new calendar event

Mosuki
  • Can define specific groups for viewing events
  • Search capability
  • No customization for look and feel
  • No color-coding of events
  • No drag and drop
  • Limited view of event description in calendar

Kiko
  • Drag and drop
  • Color-coding of events (16 colors)
  • Sharing limited to all, contacts, or none
  • No customization for look and feel
  • No search
www.kiko.com

www.kiko.com/appt/application?user_id=2580

1 Comments:

  • Could be that it is just a matter of what we are used to... But I don't think so. From my perspective, wider columns unnecessarily bring more attention to those columns, although they are not necessarily more important. They are only wider as stated by some arbitrary criteria of how long the description is. Therefore, I prefer making all days considered equal with the potential of highlighting drawing attention to important events.

    I see the 37signals discussion (by the way, I like their Backpack software)... If only they would (1) have a "good" calendar function and (2) have something more compatible with phones, then I would use it for keeping track of my data.

    Anyway, in their discussion, they were talking about linear calendars. I think a graphical representation still has value. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, and I think it would be much easier to get an overview of calendar events through the traditional grid representation than a linear form. Of course it does not HAVE to be the traditional grid form, but so far, it's probably difficult to come up with a useful meaningful graphical form other than grid.

    By Blogger Jim, at 5:19 PM  

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