It is with much excitement (and much relief because I can stop ducking the questions) that I can share with you the news about our All-New Yahoo! Calendar.
You’ve been asking (a lot) and I’ve been rather coy, but now you know why. Yahoos have had a chance to play with it for a few months now, and I’m very comfortable telling you (and all of my friends) that it is worth the wait.
Granted many of you may be wondering why an online calendar is that big a deal. After all, despite the fact that most web-based mail services have integrated calendars, adoption has remained somewhat low (by comparison). We think that is going to change, and here’s why:
- Open standards like iCalendar and CalDAV make all calendars work together so people can share their schedules online without the hiccups of the past.
- Broadband and mobile device ubiquity means you’re always connected, even if you don’t like to admit it. You need your busy life to be in order and follow you wherever you go.
- Web 2.0 technologies have made it possible to incorporate very cool visual effects and practical functions like event discovery.
By leveraging some of the technology that the Zimbra team has brought to the table, and by working with many other groups in the online calendaring community, we have brought a lot of exciting stuff to the new Yahoo! Calendar. One of the components we deemed most critical was improving the ways for you to connect with your friends and family – even those who aren’t using Yahoo! Calendar. Our new Calendar is interoperable with the other popular services, including calendars from Apple, Microsoft, AOL, Mozilla, and Google.
Other bells and whistles include:
- 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 30 Rock will air.
- Personalize your Yahoo! Calendar with interesting photos from Flickr to make your online calendar as visually appealing as it is productive.
- Set email, IM or SMS reminders for important activities and never miss a birthday or anniversary again.
- Easily drag and drop events to reschedule appointments without having to refresh your Web page.
And this is really only the beginning. We are working on auto-sync capabilities with Outlook, options to download relevant calendars with ease (think sports teams, class schedules, etc.), and snazzy integration with many other Yahoo! properties.
So whether you were among those who have been eagerly awaiting news of an update, or are just someone curious about how useful an online calendar can be, you should head over to http://switch.calendar.yahoo.com and sign-up for the best Yahoo! Calendar we’ve ever offered. The early stages of the Beta are limited, so get on the waiting list now! If you want to take a look before you sign-up, or want our Calendar guru (Herbert) to show you around, check out the screencast below. We’ve also got a jumbo version if you’d like to view the video more clearly.
pls stop these bad emails
Brilliant – Yahoo Calendar Beta is now available to BT Yahoo users.
Checked this morning and have set it up.
However, I have a problem syncing between my Apple iCal account and my Yahoo Calendar account.
I can only get it to sync one way. I’ve set up my iCal Account to sync with Yahoo Calendar Beta and the set up was fine. I can create an event in Yahoo Calendar and it syncs to iCal. But events created in iCal don’t sync to Yahoo and none of my historic data in iCal has made it to Yahoo Calendar.
Any ideas?
When is the new Yahoo calendar expected to be available to everyone? Will the ability to sync to the Blackberry and iPhone be included in the release?
[...] a few months back we told you about the launch of an updated version of the Yahoo! Calendar. The all-new Yahoo! Calendar Beta offers a host of great features like open [...]
For the last three weeks I’ve been getting an error message every time I try to access my calendar on my mobile phone saying mobile calendar is not currently available and will be returning soon. What’s the problem and how long is soon?
I tried to sync calendar with my Blackberry and now cannot access my calendar at all. I get an error code 9999. Any ideas on how to get my calendar back?
I agree with Mel, that Google calendar is so easy to sync with my Blackberry. But I hate Gmail and love Yahoo mail. So I am using Yahoo for my email and Google to manage my calendar and contacts. I would prefer to use Yahoo for everything to sync to my Blackberry. Please let me know when this is available.
Does anyone know when Calendar Beta will be available to BT Yahoo users? The new Calendar looks excellent – I’m keen to start using it
I use the yahoo calendar now and I like it better then the google calander for several reasons.
1. it allows for 15 minute intervals
2.The notes are seen when the mouse hovers over the event
3. It has a task manager
However, Google can sync with my new blackberry and I can not find a way to do it with yahoo calender. Will the new calender keep all of the old features and add the syn function? If it will when will this happen?
After a little tinkering, I’ve decided that the NEW mail doesn’t work with ATT branded services? Is that correct?
I’ve been getting that stupid “Not available in your language” message every time I try to sign up. For kicks, I created a new rocketmail account and tried it – to my surprise, it lets me in.
I really don’t want to move everything to a new id. Please tell me that support for ATT-Yahoo! DSL branded items is coming soon. It’s bad enough I lost Flickr Premium, don’t keep me in OLD mail forever…
And yes, my language is set to Preferred Content: US English.
Has anyone noticed that you can sync zero duration reminders from iCal (such as “6:15 Pick up Joe”), but you cannot create 0 minute events in Yahoo Calendar? I have to create at least a 1 minute duration event, which is meaningless when shown in week view. And if it is a zero minute sync’ed event, it comes in with a strange number in week view — a fractional minute duration, I guess? Why won’t it let you create a 0 minute duration reminder?
What happened to switch.calendar.yahoo.com? I was ready to try it…
I tried to switch to the beta, but it says my language is not supported? Is it because I access my calendar through ATT Yahoo? If so, when will I be supported?
I would be happy to test the new calendar, too. I’m from Germany, so it isn’t possible for me to change from old to new in the “normal” way – can you please set me as beta-tester? I also would offer you my help in translating it from english to german language, if there is a language-file or something like this.
Greetings
Maxse
I’ve switched back for now for two reasons: can’t figure out a way to set alarms in tasks. And the text in the calendar is too small, much harder to read than in the current calendar and I couldn’t find a way to change the option other than changing the color. Readability is a priority. I did want the drag and drop but let me know if these two other issues are fixed. From a Plus! customer who actually pays for this service.
The to do pane does not give me the option of setting an alarm by which to finish the task. The old system did. Am I missing something. Also, some of my old to do’s are now blank.
Could you elaborate on the comment about waiting on Apple for iphone sync? I think this is a very important feature that many of us are waiting for…. :)
How Soon? Once this feature exists, it might be a great excuse to say goodbye to Google Calendar
Hi Ryan, dont no much about the calender yet, can you send me some information about the calendar to matthewjackson8@ymail.com
Thanks
Here’s what Ive found out by speaking with numerous people – there is currently NO solution available that addresses the needs of many, many people. The solution that I propose and often boggles people (OMG, that would be great! Why don’t we have that?”) is a webmail service, such as Yahoo, offering email, calendar, contacts, tasks, etc., then provides a mobile SYNC option, perhaps via plugin to various mobile OSs, so that true sync-ing can happen. There should also be a service to sync from other clients as well, like Outlook, T-bird, etc.
The idea is that it’s easier to craft an email with a full sized keyboard vs. mobile keyboard, easier to make calendar entries, send links, have an html signature, etc., so it’s understandable if people prefer to work from a keyboard. We shouldn’t have to do things more than once, though.
I think basically what I’m proposing is a webmail service that acts as a sync between multiple computers and mobile devices- seamlessly, as a matter of fact.
Further, sync standards should be developed so that choosing a webmail service is about the benefits of that particular service, not the sync possibilities.
Gmail worked pretty nicely with OggSync for me, until I discovered that there’s a flaw somewhere that ends users’ ability to send email from their mobile devices. So, that clearly doesn’t work, plus OggSync is a third-party program that I ended up wasting money on (because I don’t use Gmail anymore).
So, to recap… Webmail, Mobile, Work/Home – all synced in real time without any loss of service or intrusion into our lives.
Is that too much to ask?
Thanks for listening.
When are we going to get the ability to tag our events as what they are? (i.e birthday, meeting, party, etc…). Like in the current non-beta calendar.
who r u
Issues:
1. please add the ability to right click on an email and change it to an appointment.
2. When someone sends a ical format it is not seen as such.
3. the appointment should be able to handle attachments and test in the body of the event.
This is still an issue……………….
help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/calendar/yahoocalendar/sync/index.html …
… is a completely useless set of instructions. They do NOT work. Can someone just say whether Yahoo in truth and fact really does have this advertised CALDAV server to connect to via calendar proggies?
I am beginning to smell a rat. The CALDAV server simply does NOT work and is completely UNAVAILABLE. And all we get are these inane copy/paste regurgitations of that web link, which, again, does NOT work. How else can I say that? Hmmm … es funktioniert NICHT!
Same here, brother. Trying to connect to the caldav server via Sunbird and getting no where. And inquiries to yahoo via their feedback form, — repeated inquiries — only yield regurgitated blurbs from brain-dead slave laborers in Myanmar.
Other question — why is there literally NO WAY to get help or even a remotely intelligent or at least even a non-stupid response?
I found out how to share via calendars to yahoo users. I have a personal address and tried utilizing this address. It didn’t work. So I tried using the yahoo id, and lo and behold, it worked. I still want sync capabilities…currently I am subscribed to Airset which then syncs to my Windows Mobile device. I am actually enjoying this new calendar and love the ticker within mail.
Just tried it also. Got ‘connection refused’ from the caldav server?
I was a heavy user of the online calender a few years back… I have Lotus Notes at work, Outlook at home, and had Outlook on my HP PDA. Syncing between my PDA and my PC worked great… Syncing with Yahoo worked great too… UNTIL… the day I came back to my PC & PDA when they were supposed to be updating my yahoo calender and instead of it seeing the task had been completed… I read a small message that said “See what I can do”. Naturally I pulled my PDA from it’s base and checked it’s mail and calender only to find all had been erased… DELETED!!! I also checked Outlook on my PC; it too was missing all of the over six thousand emails I had been saving for the past three years. But the worst was my calender and contacts had also been erased. Someone had hacked my PDA while it was in the cradle synced to yahoo by using the yahoo messenger program to delete all of my email, calender events, and contacts on my PDA, PC, and Yahoo account!
When I reported this to yahoo, I received a short message back saying they would investigate but they could not restore my missing data.
I can only wonder if this little problem has ever been fixed. Since I could not sync outlook on my PDA to Lotus Notes at work, all that I had on my calender at work was still there to save my ass. But the loss of those emails from my PC was a critical loss that was only partially restored from backups. Had I been able to sync between my Yahoo and Lotus notes calender I can only speculate as to my ability to restore the missing data to not only my Yahoo calender but both my PDA and PC Outlook calenders as well
Soo… I ask… Has this hole in Yahoo messenger and the sync program been worked on and fixed???
And… will the calender be able to sync with Lotus Notes???
I must admit that the new Yahoo calendar is a major improvement over the previous calendar. Now that Yahoo has one foot on the plate it’s time to bring up the other foot and swing that bat….bringing syncing capabilities for Outlook and Palm would bring you into the game and better yet, allowing for multiple calendars to sync would put you ahead of the game.
Same problem here. I reported this some time ago. Apparently its not fixed yet.
I’ve tried many times to share my calendar to my wife via share calendar to another yahoo user. The email goes out, however when I hit save, it goes into continuous load. Am I doing something wrong? Is this feature working? I’ve also encountered the same issue when subscribing…intermittently. Any thoughts?
Please help me switch back. I use my calendar everyday and it has all my contacts in it plus I can’t wait for you guys to get the sync thing up and running.
lots of adds on myspace
more info: http://tinyurl.com/6hv3qq
I was excited to be one of the first to try the beta, hoping to combine personal and work calendars, however, I am disappointed that I can’t use it as fully as the old Yahoo calendar. It takes way to long to make revisions, reminders aren’t working right, I lost detail on my to-do list, and a number of other things. I’m going to wait until its’ out of beta = PLEASE SWITCH ME BACK!
I was elated to get an invite to the beta…and that’s where my elation stops.
Unfortunately, the only new things about the calendar are its “ajax” sourcing and the ability to have any start/end time, not the “so-90s” 15-minute increment.
Yahoo continues to need to play catch-up with Gmail Calendar, and surprisingly enough, the impressive new calendar in hotmail/windowslive.
Here’s what Yahoo needs to do to “catch up”:
1. Add the “Agenda” view currently supported by Google and MSN
2. In the “week view”, if your event is more than 12-15 characters long, you get that annoying cut-off; also, having your mouse “hover” over the event in question does not always bring up the full event.
3. Has Yahoo even noticed that MSN/Hotmail has added a very powerful outlook-type “To-Do” list? Yahoo’s new “to-do” or task application is a joke- it has no area for due date, notes, etc.
C’mon Yahoo- if you want to play with the big boys, you need to grow up!
If the complete text of an event does not appear how about extending it to the next line down so the entire event title is visible..??
Thanks for switching me back – however that happened…
Can you include the “Daily Agenda” email like Google does?
That information is being stored but not yet exposed. Thanks for your patience.
Events still not shown correctly in the “week” view or in the calendar time line in Yahoo mail. Times are of by approximately 3 hrs (EST).
When will we be able to sort by event type? I hope the event type is still related to each of my events since I have switched to the beta Calendar…
When I share the calendar to someone else who has add/edit capability, they only see busy blocks on the calendar? Why can’t they see the actual entries?
Calendar sharing feature not working. Sent a sharing invitation to a family member (also on Yahoo). They used the link sent to them to add it to their calendar. The add request page just hung there for a moment and then went to error. Calendar was not added.
i cant wait 4 it to come out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’d like to switch back – until the calendar strip issue is fixed, I really can’t use the new calendar. Thanks!
Its an advertising location. We’re trying to do something different here and it’ll be coming.
we’re looking into this one
Nope! I LOVE the new calendar! I finished splitting up my events into different layers (I think I might have used too much bandwidth with all the calendar updates I was making). Once I got that finished though the problem went away.
Good work with the calendar! I really like it, and look forward to new updates and features!
I’d like to know what the future plans for that box are as well!