“Groupon Scheduler grew out of technology from our September 2011 acquisition of OpenCal, an innovative company founded in 2009 by product designers Arash Shiva and Simon Vallee in Vancouver, Canada,” says Groupon VP and GM of Retail Solutions David Katz. “We recognized that there were thousands of appointment-based Groupon merchants looking for a simple way to implement online scheduling. Groupon Scheduler can accommodate schedules for different employees, services, and business locations, allowing consumers to book appointments without having to call or email.”

“Groupon consumers can book appointments with participating merchants through their account on Groupon.com and will receive a reminder email 24 hours before the scheduled appointment,” he explains. “In addition to booking Groupon clientele, merchants can place a ‘Book Now’ button on their website to schedule non-Groupon appointments and manage their entire calendar.”

The product is available via a pilot program in Sacramento and Miami to begin with, with plans for expansion throughout U.S. markets and internationally in the near future. It’s a little surprising that they didn’t start with their hometown Chicago.

Tungle is a cloud-based calendar and scheduling service, which works with Google, Yahoo, Facebook, TripIt, Plancast, Outlook, iCal, LotusNotes, LotusLive, and WindowsLive.

RIM VP, Collaboration and Social Networking Tom Gorguen says, “BlackBerry is a fantastic solution for connecting users to the people and information that matter most throughout their day. By working with Tungle to add cloud-based, cross-platform calendar capabilities to the BlackBerry platform we can further enrich our customers’ experience with BlackBerry and continue to help them get things done.”

TungleToday is a big day at Tungle. We are officially joining the RIM team! 2 hours ago · 13 likes · 8 comments

A statement from Tungle CEO Marc Gingras on Tungle’s blog says:

Tungle has been acquired by Research In Motion (RIM).

Our objective is to keep innovation at the forefront – to be rebels in our own way. Think, Create, Innovate.

Based on the comments Tungle is receiving about its news, it would appear there is some concern from customers as to how the acquisition will affect the service. One of their Facebook fans says, “There goes the Apple support out the window… Darn, I better print new business cards. No wonder you guys never fixed the new iCal support. Looks like I’ll need to find myself a new tool. Good news for you guys, BAD news for Apple users…”

Another responds, “Doubtful that they are going to drop iPhone/Mac support, since Tungle is useful based on being available on all platforms..”

RIM is extending its own BlackBerry Messaging to Android and iOS, so it does indeed seem doubtful that it would shutdown Apple support.

When you create a calendar with Google, you have the options “do not share with everyone” (default) and “share all information on this calendar with everyone” (which additionally triggers a confirmation dialog).

However, when people add certain events to public calendars, it may be that they’ve forgotten they once made the calendar public. Maybe Google needs to put a more visible icon next to public calendars as a reminder, or always trigger a confirmation when you add an event to a public calendar, but this is not a Google Calendar security vulnerability – it’s user misconfiguration, similar to when you e.g. create a blog post with information that ought to be secret, and then someone searches Google for “password username”.

If you have a calendar, make sure you remember its privacy settings – one way to do so would be to add the word “Public” to the titles of your public calendar.

[Thanks Bilal Hameed!]

Comments

Tag:

LeAnn says that Google’s traffic share has tripled since June, and that it appears to be close to matching Yahoo’s traffic, which has been declining sharply over the same period. All of which is great, and it’s nice to see that a Google property is growing – unlike, say, Froogle or Google Co-op, etc. But that’s not what struck me about the Hitwise chart. What struck me was how tiny the online calendar market is.

If you look away from the downhill slide of Yahoo’s line on the chart and the upward climb of Google’s line on the chart, what you notice is that even at its peak the market leader – Yahoo – had 0.008 per cent of all Internet traffic. After its slide, it is around 0.005 per cent, and Google is at 0.0043 per cent. In other words, all three of the online calendar leaders put together have a little over one one-hundredth of one per cent of Internet traffic.

As more than one commenter has noted, it would be interesting to see where 30boxes.com and some of the other online Ajax calendars sit in terms of traffic share. But what is clear is that Google and Yahoo are still fighting over table scraps, and that online calendars have a long way to go before they become a significant factor for Internet users.

Comments

Tag:

Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Furl

Bookmark WebProNews:

Mathew Ingram is a
technology writer and blogger for the Globe and Mail, a national
newspaper based in Toronto, and also writes about the Web and media at
www.mathewingram.com/work and www.mathewingram.com/media.

They research and compile editorial calendars from publications that are pertinent to their client’s business.

You should too.

What’s an editorial calendar?

Editorial calendars are schedules of what topics a publication plans for cover for a particular month. For example, the INC. editorial calendar for July 2003 http://www.inc.com/advertise/magazine/calendar.html states that they’re writing an article on various business services.

Bingo!

If you feel that you can contribute to this particular topic, call or email the editorial department at INC. (try to “speak” to the managing editor) and find out who (which reporter) has been assigned to write the story. Email or call the reporter and explain how you can contribute. It’s that simple — it takes less time than writing this article – and is much more effective than blast-faxing a garbage bound press release to inappropriate reporters.

Final thoughts: Many publications post their editorial calendars on their Web sites — usually they’re found in their advertising media kits. Otherwise, contact the publication’s advertising departments and ask for a calendar. Check for editorial deadlines – many publications work 6 months in advance.

You can find a list of 2003 editorial calendars for the largest publications at: http://www2.ragan.com/media/pr/edcal2003.pdf

Bill Stoller, the “Publicity Insider”, has spent two decades as one of America’s top publicists. Now, through his website, eZine and subscription newsletter, Free Publicity: The Newsletter for PR-Hungry Businesses http://www.PublicityInsider.com/freepub.asp he’s sharing — for the very first time — his secrets of scoring big publicity. For free articles, killer publicity tips and much, much more, visit Bill’s exclusive new site: http://www.publicityInsider.com/