Skip to main content

Google Calendar vs Yahoo Calendar

Google Calendar web based service leaves the Google Building today but like recent Google launches, the service is either too slow or down most of the time due to heavy web traffic. Expect the service to stabilize in a day or two.

We had a similar experience during the public launch of Google Analytics, Google Base, Google Page Creator or the most recent Google Finance.

Lot of people have already written indepth reviews of Google Calendar. The Screenshots of Google Calendar have been available on TechCrunch much before the public launch.

The user interface of Google Calendar is sleek and impressive. But let's try to compare features of the most popular online calendar service - Yahoo Calendar with Google Calendar. To begin, we'll peform the most common calendar-related tasks using both the online calendar services:



Quickly add an event (like a meeting appointment or task reminder)
Google Calendar: Click a cell in any Calendar view (like Day, Week or Month) - a callout appears - just type the event name with time (optional) like "pick movie tickets 4pm" - Google automatically schedules an event at 4pm.


Yahoo has a more traditional interface with a quick add event box at the bottom of the calendar screen (picture above). Google approach is quicker and since it uses AJAX, the event is added immediately without a page reload as in Yahoo.

Sharing Calendars, XML Feeds
You can share either calendars with public or specific users identified by email addresses. Google does offer a iCal/XML feed that users can subscribe to in their RSS readers. Yahoo has not touched the XML territory yet though it lets you share calendars with a web interface.


Schedule a recurring event (like your son's birthday or parents' anniversary)
Both Google Calendar and Yahoo Calendar offer a similar form when it comes to adding a general event. Yahoo lets you select the type of event like Birthday, Anniversary, Call, etc (that's how it shows those tiny favicons near the event name on the calendar). Second, Yahoo lets you schedule multiple reminders for the same event.


Yahoo shows the "Add Event" in one long page while Google Calendar offers a better design layout. But when it comes to features, Yahoo wins by a long margin here.

Setting events from the past or in future
Yahoo Calendar lets you add tasks or events since the past year until the next eight years. Google Calendar has no such restriction and lets you schedule events starting from 1st January, 1900 until any date in the future. Google Calendar Widgets are more easy to use and flexible than the Yahoo Calendar dropdown.

Navigation: Support for Keyboard Shortcuts
Google has nice intutive keyboard shortcuts like c for creating event, q for quick add, / for search (like Firefox) and Esc to switch to the main view. Yahoo Calendar has no keyboard shortcut support and the only way to navigate is with a mouse pointer.

Multiple Calendars
Google Calendar lets you create multiple calendars like one for your office, one for your family events and one more for scheduling parties among friends. Yahoo does not support multiple calendars yet.

Sending out Notification and Event Reminders
Both Google and Yahoo calendar support notifications by email and SMS. They support most cellular operators in the US and SMS may attract a fee depending upon the service provider.

Google Calendar has a great feature called Daily Agenda that sends you a reminder at 5am of all scheduled events on that particular day. Yahoo has a Daily Calendar Reminders feature that allows you to have an email sent to you summarizing the day's calendar events and items on your Task list.

We've seen Google Finance quickly grab marketshare from Yahoo Finance because of a more interactive interface. The same could be said about Google Calendar. Though both Yahoo and Google offer similar set of features, the interface of Google Calendar is miles ahead of Yahoo Calendar.

Since Google makes it very easy to import existing calendars from Yahoo calendar or Microsoft Outlook, expect lot of people to make a switch to Google Calendar once their servers are ready to take the load. Yahoo, better hurry up.

More reviews by SEW, Matt, Phillip, Mike, CNet, Loren, Dave Nathan and Om

Popular posts from this blog

How to Download Contacts from Facebook To Outlook Address Book

Facebook users are not too pleased with the "walled garden" approach of Facebook. The reason is simple - while you can easily import your Outlook address book and GMail contacts into Facebook, the reverse path is closed. There's no "official" way to export your Facebook friends email addresses or contact phone numbers out as a CSV file so that you can sync the contacts data with Outlook, GMail or your BlackBerry. Some third-party Facebook hacks like "Facebook Sync" (for Mac) and "Facebook Downloader" (for Windows) did allow you to download your Facebook friends' names, emails, mobile phone number and profile photo to the desktop but they were quickly removed for violation of Facebook Terms of Use. How to Download Contacts from Facebook There are still some options to take Friends data outside the walls of Facebook wall. Facebook offers the Takeout option allowing you to download all Facebook data locally to the disk (include
Read more

Firefox Keyboard Shortcuts for Power Users

All features in Mozilla Firefox browser are accessible through the use of the keyboard. You can use shortcut keys to view and save Web pages, search the web, open new webpages, work with bookmarks, or find text on the current webpage. Some of the most common keyboard shortcuts in Mozilla Firefox are Ctrl+N (to open a new Firefox window), Ctrl+T (to open a new tab), Ctrl+F4 (to close the current tab) and Ctrl+S to save the current webpage. Mozilla Firefox supports many more powerful keyboard shortcuts. For instance, by pressing a simple key combination, you can manually delete autocomplete entries from the Firefox location bar or Web forms. I am sharing a list of my favorite Mozilla Firefox Keyboard Shortcuts that make web browsing with Firefox even more fun . And you also save your precious time as navigating through several layers of Firefox Toolbar menus is no longer necessary. 1. Web Search Ctrl+K moves the cursor to the Search Bar. You can then type in the terms you wish to fin
Read more

Digital Inspiration

Digital Inspiration is a popular tech blog by  Amit Agarwal . Our popular Google Scripts include  Gmail Mail Merge  (send personalized emails with Gmail ),  Document Studio (generate PDFs from Google Forms ) and   File Upload Forms ( receive files  in Google Drive). Also see  Reverse Image Mobile Search , Online Speech Recognition and Website Screenshots , the most useful websites on the Internet.
Read more