Thursday 10 November 2005

Calendars and schedules

My big software interest at the moment is calendars. It changes from time to time, of course - a little while ago I could only think of blogging and note-taking, and before that it was personal information organisers. But right now it's calendar software - how it should operate, how it should communicate, and what it can be used for.

All the technology exists right now for us to create an online service that allows us to share calendar and schedule information in a totally cross-platform, transparent way, at which point we can figure out new and interesting uses for the information. Imagine an online service like Blogger that allows users to create calendars and publish them as RSS feeds with vCalendar files enclosed for each entry. Now imagine that you can point your copy of Outlook or Mozilla Sunbird at such a feed and show the events on your own schedule.

Now think a bit beyond club meetings and letting your spouse know about doctor's appointments. Think about other applications working with this information. Imagine setting up a personal TV guide with shows or keywords you're interested in, and having a TV card in your PC read that feed and record your shows for you on schedule, whether they change times or not. Imagine scheduling maintenance actions across a whole network of corporate PCs by publishing an event to an internal maintenance timeline. This is technology with powerful potential.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I will probably grow bored of it in a while.
PPS - Give it a few weeks.

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