Yahoo! Calendar launched, it’s good but not the best

It was time Yahoo! tried to keep up with competition from let’s say, Google. I say try because, as we speak, Yahoo! still remains the same old, lazy “old man” with few real attempts aimed at the competition. Anyway, Yahoo! Calendar comes as an unofficial response to Google Calendar, which I personally love. Now, how will Yahoo! Calendar steal me away from Google Calendar, well, it won’t.

Yahoo! presents its new breed as following:

“With the new Yahoo! Calendar you can:

- Subscribe to any iCalendar-based public calendar and add upcoming events and show times to your Yahoo! Calendar. This means you’ll be able to plan for a local concert when your favorite band comes to town and you’ll know when the next new episode of “Lost” will air.
- Easily drag and drop events to reschedule appointments without having to refresh your Web page.
- Set email, IM or SMS reminders for important activities and never miss a birthday or anniversary again.
- Personalize your Yahoo! Calendar with interesting photos from Flickr to make your online calendar as visually appealing as it is productive.”

You can also “beautify” your calendar with photos from Flickr, which is probably a nice feature, but not a “wow” feature. Also, Yahoo! Calendar doesn’t bring anything new on the table, the features bundled can be found in Google Calendar aswell as in other services of this kind. You may say that Yahoo! Calendar is beta and it will get improved over time, I don’t disagree, but I simply don’t get the strategy. Why launch a product that doesn’t “steal” some slices from the competition, but you warn them you will?

“And this beta is just the first in a series of updates you’ll see coming from us. Imagine being able to download your favorite sports team’s schedule, your class schedule, or your child’s t-ball schedule and being constantly on top of everything. That’s coming soon, along with additional event discovery features..”

Probably many Yahoo! users will convert to this calendar and this is probably the aim of Yahoo!, considering Y! Mail has “only” 285 million users to spread it. Anyway, I’m still faithful to Google’s Calendar, so Yahoo, you still have time to impress me.

    Sphere It