Conclusions
Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: online, calendar | Themes: Software, Business
5. Conclusions
Conclusions
Yahoo, Google and Microsoft all clearly have solid online calendar offerings that are all a little different from each other in small ways. Yet, those small differences will sway users to opt for one of the calendars over the others.
Depending on how you prefer to have calendar views show up, for example, could be an issue. The event wraparound in Yahoo is painless as opposed to the more common cut-off events in Google and Windows Live.
The whole issue of reminders is also critical. If you’re the kind of person that needs lots of reminders before an event (think snooze button), then Windows Live calendar isn’t for you. If two will suffice, then Yahoo will work. But if you want the ultimate in reminders you need Google, which provides as many reminders as you want.
If you run Outlook 2003 and absolutely need to have calendar synchronization because you’re not going to abandon your local calendar, presently you only have one choice: Yahoo.
All three calendars have different sharing approaches, too. If all your friends are on Yahoo or Windows Live, then it’s probably a good idea to stick with those platforms to make calendar sharing easier. Then again, with Google’s invite-a-guest function you can invite anyone you want regardless of where they may have a profile. While Yahoo also has an invite feature, its lack of Outlook integration is a real negative. Google’s invite feature is unique among the three vendors, and if that’s a feature you’re used to on your local calendar (work based or otherwise), then Google is an obvious choice.
Both Google and Windows Live handle multiple calendar views significantly easier than Yahoo calendar. So if you’re looking to deal with more than one calendar, that’s a factor to consider.
As all three vendors are online services though, each will change and improve over time. We’d expect that Microsoft will at some point offer Outlook synchronization as will Google, though neither does today. Google does not currently offer instant messaging notification for reminders, which is also likely to change at some point.
Thanks to standardized calendar formats like iCal and ICS, you can play around with each of the calendars and manually import/export data from one to the other. See what reminder/sharing options fit with what you need your calendar to do and how you like to work. There are a lot of little choices to be made in choosing which calendar should be used, and ultimately, it’s just a matter of personal taste and needs.
Just don’t forget to recycle that old paper calendar.
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One big feature that appears to be missing from the article is Googles ability to recognise events from emails and add them directly from gmail, even if the event was just a regular email with times and places.
Also, depending on the view, creating an event at a certain time and for a certain duration is also easy - just click the time and drag for how long you want it to be. There is also some tricky logic that allows you to click on 8:30am, add a description of "Metting at Head Office at 1325" and have google figure out that the meeting location is head office and the time is actually 1:25pm.
if you are using Blackberry, maybe other mobile devices... Only Google calendar, can you sync over the air. and the sync is automatic. You put some stuff on your mobile device or on the web, they sync!
However, yahoo go! can sync your contacts. I hope Google will allow you to sync.
also, Google has other mobile apps and they upgrade automatically.
Google is just cool....
I use www.plaxo.com to sync automatically both ways my Google and Outlook calendars. It was easy to setup and it really works well.
Take a look at Cozi. works well for busy families. It is both web based and has a program that you can download to your PC. I also has a free toolbar that syncs great with Outlook.
I´m using my Google Calendar with Mozilla Thunderbird.
Check "Lightning" and "Provider for Goggle Calendar" extensions. It´ll be a good surprise
One important point is Yahoo's lack of support for iCal/ICS.
They should have reviewed Airset.com's offering, which is far and away the best online solution for calendaring out there, especially if you want to sync with multiple desktops.
"What?s interesting though is that you can just click to add an event but the quick view doesn?t offer the choice of selecting a time"
This isn't true... when you single-click on a calendar date, you can enter a time in the same box as the event title, and the page recognizes the time when you save it.
Sorry, the last comment was in reference to Google Calendar.
You said:
>What?s interesting though is that you can just click to add an event but the quick view doesn?t offer the choice of selecting a time-which in effect makes the event a day event (or maybe even just a task).
This is not true though. Just type in the time and/or location: 6pm dinner at restaurant
have you seen FriendEvent (www.friend-event.com)?
its a pretty neat calendar social network. it doesnt have all the intense importing/syncing features of google calendar, but i think its supposed to be more geared towards the social aspect of sharing events with friends.