More learning from Kiko

It’s interesting, when we did our off the grid camp last week Richard White, who worked on the UI of Kiko, showed up. Clearly a very smart guy (and his new timing app already had other customers who didn’t even know Richard before last week).

But I had no idea that Kiko was going to be such an interesting story this week. Just goes to show you that I don’t recognize interesting stories that are sitting in front of me.

Anyway, I found his post on the failure of Kiko one of the most interesting I’ve ever read. Highly recommended reading for any entrepreneur (or, really, any employee of any company, since we’re all responsible for keeping our companies running).

Oh, and James Robertson says he likes Google Calendar but admits that he doesn’t work in a corporate office.

I like some of it too. So, now that I’ve bashed it I’ll write something soon about what I like about it.

But, it still isn’t there for most companies to use. But that shouldn’t make Microsoft celebrate and rest on its laurels. It’s pretty clear that Google is going after the general Office worker with a range of apps. The next few years should be interesting to watch the big boys duke it out.

It’ll also be interesting to see what entrepreneurs, like 37Signals (we use their stuff at PodTech too) do to change the game under the feet of the big elephants.

I note that competitor 30Boxes founder participated on the comments on Richard’s post. AirSet also emailed me and told me that its calendar works on mobile phones (but, not, alas, my SmartPhone).

Maybe I should get together with Scott Mace who keeps the Calendar Swamp blog and do a whole show on calendars so we can show you what the do well and what they don’t do well.

21 thoughts on “More learning from Kiko

  1. Robert. Maybe I’m being greedy, but could you let us loyal readers know what is missing from Google Calendar? I don’t use it (though I have toyed with it), but I’d like to know what Outlook does better. If I just wanted to hear somebody say they “hate hate hate” something, I’d read a livejournal or a myspace blog 😉

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  2. Robert. Maybe I’m being greedy, but could you let us loyal readers know what is missing from Google Calendar? I don’t use it (though I have toyed with it), but I’d like to know what Outlook does better. If I just wanted to hear somebody say they “hate hate hate” something, I’d read a livejournal or a myspace blog 😉

    Like

  3. Robert. Maybe I’m being greedy, but could you let us loyal readers know what is missing from Google Calendar? I don’t use it (though I have toyed with it), but I’d like to know what Outlook does better. If I just wanted to hear somebody say they “hate hate hate” something, I’d read a livejournal or a myspace blog 😉

    Like

  4. Greetings,
    I use Google Calendar, and it’s exceptional for me.

    But I’m relatively odd; it’s exceptional for me because I use Windows, Linux, and OSX on a regular basis, and my wife switches between OSX and Windows constantly. We both have Mac laptops we usually keep in the living room, and a Windows desktop in our shared office upstairs.

    A browser-app is cross-platform by default, so we have no problem having a calendar open on whatever box we’re on. Further, I can be at work, on a Linux box, or a Windows box, and have our shared calendar open.

    There just isn’t a standard calendaring ‘app’ that can do this. The web is THE natural place for a calendar, for us. I think in the long run, it will be the natural place for everybody, maybe with rich widgets offering some extensions locally.

    Most people don’t need cross-platform capabilities like that, though, which is just one reason why I say I and my wife are relatively odd. 🙂

    For Richard B., I’d bet his #1 issue is offline-access, and that’s a reasonable issue. I’m never really offline, though.

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  5. Greetings,
    I use Google Calendar, and it’s exceptional for me.

    But I’m relatively odd; it’s exceptional for me because I use Windows, Linux, and OSX on a regular basis, and my wife switches between OSX and Windows constantly. We both have Mac laptops we usually keep in the living room, and a Windows desktop in our shared office upstairs.

    A browser-app is cross-platform by default, so we have no problem having a calendar open on whatever box we’re on. Further, I can be at work, on a Linux box, or a Windows box, and have our shared calendar open.

    There just isn’t a standard calendaring ‘app’ that can do this. The web is THE natural place for a calendar, for us. I think in the long run, it will be the natural place for everybody, maybe with rich widgets offering some extensions locally.

    Most people don’t need cross-platform capabilities like that, though, which is just one reason why I say I and my wife are relatively odd. 🙂

    For Richard B., I’d bet his #1 issue is offline-access, and that’s a reasonable issue. I’m never really offline, though.

    Like

  6. Greetings,
    I use Google Calendar, and it’s exceptional for me.

    But I’m relatively odd; it’s exceptional for me because I use Windows, Linux, and OSX on a regular basis, and my wife switches between OSX and Windows constantly. We both have Mac laptops we usually keep in the living room, and a Windows desktop in our shared office upstairs.

    A browser-app is cross-platform by default, so we have no problem having a calendar open on whatever box we’re on. Further, I can be at work, on a Linux box, or a Windows box, and have our shared calendar open.

    There just isn’t a standard calendaring ‘app’ that can do this. The web is THE natural place for a calendar, for us. I think in the long run, it will be the natural place for everybody, maybe with rich widgets offering some extensions locally.

    Most people don’t need cross-platform capabilities like that, though, which is just one reason why I say I and my wife are relatively odd. 🙂

    For Richard B., I’d bet his #1 issue is offline-access, and that’s a reasonable issue. I’m never really offline, though.

    Like

  7. “Highly recommended reading for any entrepreneur (or, really, any employee of any company, since we’re all responsible for keeping our companies running)”

    Do you think that someone with 0 to 5% stocks should work as hard as someone with 50%? And by ‘as hard’ I mean in proportion passed 9 to 5?

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  8. “Highly recommended reading for any entrepreneur (or, really, any employee of any company, since we’re all responsible for keeping our companies running)”

    Do you think that someone with 0 to 5% stocks should work as hard as someone with 50%? And by ‘as hard’ I mean in proportion passed 9 to 5?

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  9. “Highly recommended reading for any entrepreneur (or, really, any employee of any company, since we’re all responsible for keeping our companies running)”

    Do you think that someone with 0 to 5% stocks should work as hard as someone with 50%? And by ‘as hard’ I mean in proportion passed 9 to 5?

    Like

  10. Colin: my ethic says “yes.” But that’s just me. I don’t expect that from my employees.

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  11. Colin: my ethic says “yes.” But that’s just me. I don’t expect that from my employees.

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  12. Colin: my ethic says “yes.” But that’s just me. I don’t expect that from my employees.

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  13. Hey Robert, thanks for the praise on the article. It’s been such a crazy last week, I hadn’t even planned to do such an article until after the auction so it’s still a work in progress. I’m actually back in Yellowstone this week with family. Its obviously a good place to get away from all of this and reflect.

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  14. Hey Robert, thanks for the praise on the article. It’s been such a crazy last week, I hadn’t even planned to do such an article until after the auction so it’s still a work in progress. I’m actually back in Yellowstone this week with family. Its obviously a good place to get away from all of this and reflect.

    Like

  15. Hey Robert, thanks for the praise on the article. It’s been such a crazy last week, I hadn’t even planned to do such an article until after the auction so it’s still a work in progress. I’m actually back in Yellowstone this week with family. Its obviously a good place to get away from all of this and reflect.

    Like

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