Timebridge finally opens up Tuesday, August 14, 2007
A long time ago I registered to trial Timebridge, an online service designed to help you find times to meet others that are mutually convenient in a single hit, rather via a series of email-exchanges.
Well, some 9 months on they've finally opened up and dumped their tight integration with Outlook that they initially planned and ran in the private beta.
Techcrunch covers the launch here.
Having registered, I'm impressed with how slick it looks but two things are irritating
1. no ical integration. Whilst most of the world probably use Outlook or Google calendars which Timebridge does support, I'm delighted to be using Airset which is ical enabled.
2. you are limited to suggesting 5 times for a meeting. That may seem a lot, but when you are suggesting an hour or two here and there, it's a painful constraint.
Both are these irritations are absent from my current service Timetomeet, which I think I shall probably be sticking with. It too is free to use. Whilst it would be easy to move, I've gotten used to the equally excellent interface they offer.
I'd agree with many who suggest that this sort of feature should be embedded within calendaring applications like Google calendar or airset, but as they are not here are some others you may care to also try
http://www.diarised.com
http://www.timetomeet.info
http://www.doodle.ch
http://www.ipolipo.com
http://tungle.com
http://www.biz-e.com
UPDATE
Yori from Timebridge kindly left a comment on this post and drew my attention to one EXCELLENT feature I hadnt spotted and which will probably swing me over to Timebridge as soon as they add ical integration, namely automatic slot management enabling you to offer the same time slots to multiple meetings/people, without fear of conflict. To repeat his illustration, suppose you are to interview 5 candidates on Monday. You can offer the same time slots to all five candidates, and the system will confirm their times automatically and cleanly. This is a big win and a feature I've asked Timetomeet about repeatedly. Without it you end up having to remember to withdraw slots from the calendar offered to people - thankfully because it's held online, you can adjust it before they accept. BUT IT IS A PAIN.
posted by John Wilson @ 10:42 PM Permanent Link
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1 Comments:
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At 1:10 AM,
said...
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Thanks for the post John, and I'm glad you like our new product!
I just wanted to let you know that we definitely have plans to integrate with other calendars beyond Google and Outlook. We are working on making that happen as we speak.
In terms of five slots - our research, supported by actual usage data, has indicated that 5 slots are optimal in terms of narrowing it down to a time that all your attendees can do. If you want a more open environment, you can share your full availability, and have the other person select times in return.
Lastly, you may have overlooked some of the finer, but very useful functions of TimeBridge. For example, with TimeBridge you can offer the same time slots to multiple meetings/people, without fear of conflict. To illustrate, suppose you are to interview 5 candidates on Monday. You can offer the same time slots to all five candidates, and the system will confirm their times automatically and cleanly.
TimeBridge is striving to be a true Personal Scheduling Manager – a platform that offloads all the mundane details of scheduling, so you do not need to worry about them.
Cheers!
Yori
