It’s the Calendar you’ve been waiting for!

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.