TimeBridge is a San Francisco-based startup that wants to do one thing very well: help with scheduling meetings.
They originally started out as a deeply integrated Outlook plug-in launched at the end of last year. While initially distinguishing them from other scheduling competitors, I have a feeling that the plug-in requirement added unnecessary friction to using the system.
Now TimeBridge is back with a full web only interface that integrates with your Google and Outlook calendars, with support for other calendars soon. The new version pushes them in the direction of their Montreal-based competitor Tungle, which integrates with more calendars. Tungle also differs by using a P2P system that runs between you and your contacts systems, not on a central server like TimeBrigde.
TimeBridge’s original Outlook plug-in brought their full functionality to your desktop. All of this functionality is now available with the web application, using the plug-ins to pull and push calendaring data between your computer and the web. Updates made on one calendar are reflected on the others and a master calendar is accessible anywhere on the web.
To make a meeting, you log in to their site, and fill out an email-like form consisting of the email addresses for attendees, meeting topic, and possible meeting times. You don’t have to download anything to use TimeBridge, but it helps if you install the plug-ins. If your attendees don’t have a TimeBridge, you can just suggest times based on your personal schedule. If they have TimeBridge integrated with their calendars, though, you can view what blocks of their scheduled time in a sidebar as you choose times.
After you send out the meeting request, each participant gets a full meeting request form in their email. The form lists the possible meeting times, which participants can select as no good, good, or best. Accepting the meeting request places time placeholders on calendars for people with TimeBridge.
The system then picks the best meeting time by points based on attendee responses with ties going to earlier times. If a an upcoming meeting time hasn’t been settled, you can either pick a meeting time or send reminders to the people that didn’t respond. Attendees with TimeBridge will then see the confirmed meeting slot pop up on their calendars.
The video below outlines the process in greater detail. TimeBridge is a funded through a total of $8.5 million by Mayfield and Norwest Ventures.
Sounds like a convenient service.
Business contact has become so automated and hi tech – this along with Web conferencing technology and Web Collaboration services – means you can pretty much be in a world wide organization and never meet with or even bother to telephone any of your colleagues or collaborators.
I hate to be negative because this really is a useful tool, but Google could build this functionality for calendar in one leisurely afternoon, right?
Looks like an enhanced version with outlook-looks of the Dutch “datumprikker” website (i.e., datepicker)
They $8.5M funding for this. This is not even a product. It is just feature in our calendaring client with lot more deeper integration.
Can anyone tell me the business model for this company? How will they make money?… Anyone, please?
It is just a tools , do not worth so much
Cool…. it lets you share availability between companies and calendars
There are a number of products in this space:- to mention but a few
http://www.diarised.com
http://www.timetomeet.info
http:/www.doodle.ch arrange meetings
but in practice most have some ‘glitches’ in making them usable.
I have not tried timebridge as yet, I will do shortly, but the one that works amongst the crowd is
http://www.timetomeet.info
For activities that are not ‘time-based’ linked to calendars, then Circle Up is the best of the bunch of other products, and still useful in a business environment, even if the target market appears to be another category of user.
http://www.circleip.com
Would be great for someone to do a detailed analysis and trail of these types of products
Looks like online scheduling is another hot area which needs innovation. ipolipo.com is another worthwhile service to try out which i believe offers similar functionality.
TimeBridge – 1 or 2 year old bridge?
Amazing how people come up with such biz plans!
They are probably funded mainly on based of having a strong team. However it’s hard to say why there were funded without seeing their business plan.
But I agree with others, one of our product (patent pending) has some features that is similar to what these guys do…so we’ll see.
htttp://www.ipolipo.com has different functionality (and is fee based). There are also a number of products in this space (functionality).
Such sites like ipolipo are good for sceduling appointments on a one to one basis i.e. if you want a slot for a hairdressing appointment. WOuld be good for booking the dentist, or doctors !
timebridge et al are for sorting out an appointment across a group and negotiating further times if none fits.
i have now tried timebridge but timetomeet still has my vote
Is the video voice-over read in by Borat?
is it a iScrybe Killer?
http://iscrybe..../main/index.php
tungle is based in Montreal, Canada, not in Berlin
iscrybe is going to be a killer application once further development progresses and when the bugs are aout of the beta.
the functionality of the tools like timebridge and timetomeet would be a great marriage with the functionality in iscrybe, however each is a seperate application with its own user base
Nick,
Tungle is not in Berlin, but Montreal, Canada. The Berlin-based competitor is Timetomeet.info.
Btw, while TimeBridge has heavy funding and nice titles (VP, General Manager..etc), Timetomeet appears to be just a loner, developing useful tools and charging less than $1 a month – what a nouveau concept!
Tungle seems to be Canada based not Berlin based ??
If anyone has an invite to Tungle, could you please send to
alec at dorling dot net
thanks
I’ve noticed that most of these startups that are tackling the “schedule a meeting” problem are having issues with the Outlook Integration part. And since the majority of the corporate desktops out there are using Office/Outlook, this is one problem that will be critical for these companies to solve…Unless of course, the big giant (MS) comes out with a solution of its own, or an easier integration point for its third party developers.
Guys, please change that typo in the article (hint: last sentence).
Regards,
JesseJimz
i thought these guys were based in Minneapolis
*rimshot*
to #19 Justin Stonewall:
I don’t know if you signed to the timebridge web site or not but they have an add-in , called “outlook connector, ” that you can download from their site who can connect your account of timebridge to the outlook and vice versa, try it …
E.Oster
Calendar Connectivity application does not support Vista installations. That is an interesting choice for a newly released product.
Check out http://www.biz-e.com
Unlike Timebridge which requires you to have all your personal contact and calendar info in their web site, biz-e does not and it provides the same capabilities. Biz-e has been a great scheduling tool for me and its free!
OR
You could just use Outlook/Exchange, and it’ll do the same thing. And the best part is that none of the data gets sent outside of a secure network.
Note that TimeBridge does not upload your contacts or calendar to our servers – the data is streamed in real time into the application.
Sorry about the Berlin mix up. An earlier submission I had from them listed a Berlin contact.
There are a lot of people competing in the space (it’s an old one), but I found timebridge and tungle to be the most innovative. Ipolipo is a competitor, but looks like it only lets you share time slots, not actually build a consensus around a meeting time.
This functionality should be integrated into every social networking site and it’s embarassing that it isn’t.
Trivializing that TimeBridge is quote (comment #4): “…not even a product…just feature in our calendaring client with lot more deeper integration.” and comment #6: “is just a tools” is doing un-justice to many web services similar or not to TimeBridge, as the service by itself provides immense value to meeting-intensive professionals spending way too much time on scheduling their meetings. For anyone scheduling, say at least 3 meetings/calls a day with people outside their organization (for internal meetings they can just use clients such as Outlook or Notes), such a service can reduce significantly the amount of time and effort spent.
Must a valuable application/service be a stand-alone product in order to justify its existence as well as raising funds to further build it into a viable business?!
I agree that it should be part of the calendaring client but there are many clients out there, as well as non-client calendars, that such system needs to bridge over in order to make cross-organizational meeting-coordination possible, simple and affordable. The company that will eventually become the de-facto of scheduling meetings will not necessarily be Google or Microsoft but the company that builds a solution that embraces users with a fun, easy-to-use interface that integrates transparently with their existing calendars and contacts. Leave it for Google or Microsoft to buy them out later on…