Filed under: E-mail, Productivity, Web services, Yahoo!, web 2.0
Yahoo! unveils new, improved, kinda awesome beta web calendar
The new Yahoo! Calendar beta looks pretty nice. It has a slick interface that lets you zoom in on any particular date for a close-up even when you're using the month view. The calendar also features Flickr integration, so that random Creative Commons-licensed images can be pulled in to make the calendar look pretty. Eventually users will be able to add images from their own Flickr accounts.
The updates aren't just cosmetic. You can manage multiple calendars, share calendars with friends, and create to-do lists associated with your calendar. The new calendar also supports iCal and CalDAV protocols, which mean you can import calendars from AOL, Apple, Microsoft, Mozilla, and Google. At least in theory. I tried importing my Google Calendar with no success. But I was able to import my Yahoo! Calendar into Google, so that's something at least.
Keep in mind, the new Yahoo! Calendar is still in beta. And it shows in a couple of places. There are a bunch of features available in the old Yahoo! Calendar that are absent from the new beta, including the ability to search for events, show sports, ifnacnce, holiday, and weather information, or even add symbols for event types like birthdays and anniversaries. You should also note that if you switch to the beta version of the calendar and then decide to switch back, you will lose any changes made in the beta version.
Long story short, the new Yahoo! Calendar is worth checking out. But you might not want to make the switch just yet. The beta is only available to users in the US, UK, India, Taiwan, and Brazil and the moment, with a worldwide rollout expected within the next few months.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Andrew said 3:12PM on 10-08-2008
Is this an integration of Zimbra into their consumer facing apps?
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Joe Beaulaurier said 5:32PM on 10-08-2008
@Andrew - likely, but why would it matter?
This is so late in the game of online calendar development (and this from a Y! fanboy) that it is really a non-event except for those of us who are deeply entrenched using Y! tools and other ICS supporting properties that will now work much better with the calendar.
Something else that I'm not seeing being communicated from Y! any where is that the Notepad property is updated when you switch the calendar. The new UI is very barebones and smacks of an alpha rather than a beta implementation. Perhaps it's accidentally being enabled?
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Darren said 5:48PM on 10-08-2008
The Google Calendar is still the best on the market today.
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Andrew said 6:47PM on 10-08-2008
@ Joe, mostly just curious. I really like Zimbra and the suite that goes along with it. If Yahoo were to offer Zimbra hosted to everyone - I think it could seriously compete with Gcal/mail. It has Blackberry Integration, Skype plugins etc. etc..
Yahoo is no doubt a rudderless ship, but offering Zimbra seems like a pretty easy decision.. of course this is the same company that competed with itself by buying Flickr, so maybe common sense isn't part of the peanut butter manifesto.
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Joe B. said 11:33PM on 10-08-2008
@Andrew - likely, but why would it matter?
This is so late in the game of online calendar development (and this from a Y! fanboy) that it is really a non-event except for those of us who are deeply entrenched using Y! tools and other ICS supporting properties that will now work much better with the calendar.
Something else that I'm not seeing being communicated from Y! any where is that the Notepad property is updated when you switch the calendar. The new UI is very barebones and smacks of an alpha rather than a beta implementation. Perhaps it's accidentally being enabled?
Reply
Quikboy said 8:13AM on 10-09-2008
That's their beta? Wow, Google and Live Calendar are way ahead of Yahoo!, that it's quite sad how far Y! has fallen. I wonder how long it will take to add those missing features...
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Jash Sayani said 8:13AM on 10-09-2008
Syncs with iCal....?
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