Yahoo has decided to work independently to develop a calendar app under their banner. Yahoo previously owned a calendar app that integrated itself with Yahoo mail to mark and schedule events on its calendar. The name ‘Sunrise’ would be instantly recognizable to a section of e nerds who know about the functionings of the once-popular calendar app. The Sunrise app designed by Jeremy le Van was instantly popular within its user base but did not run for long. It was sold to Microsoft for about a hundred million dollars, a whopping amount for a newly designed calendar app which is nothing more than a basic utility in terms of its function. However, Microsoft decided to shut the app down only a year after buying it and it disappointed the fans of the app. However, the news of Yahoo opening its new calendar app sounded like music to the ears of those fans because the company has brought along Jeremy Le Van, the co-founder of Sunrise to accomplish the task.
What is the Functionality of a Calendar App? Why Should you use it?
Calendar applications gained popularity for the sole purpose of organizing schedules. Whether it entailed planning a trip for entertainment purposes or leisure, or just scheduling our daily chores, calendar apps became immensely handy. Most of the times workplaces integrated their work schedules and hours for each employee and the calendars would automatically sync themselves to remind each employee of their shifts. So these applications became a lot more than just a cursory glance at the days and weeks of the month.
This meant that for every calendar platform, the apps and interfaces started learning more and more about consumer trends and consumer behavior. The calendar app for Google, for illustrative purposes, automatically integrates its productivity tools which give its users furthermore reason to stick to the application instead of straying to other calendar apps of similar nature.
Similarly, Facebook acquired the calendar app named Redkix in the year 2018 for the sole purpose of acquiring more calendars and workplace tools. However later, Workplace ended up integrating the already existent offers from third-party websites and therefore, did not feel the urge to have its entirely own stand-alone calendar app. Facebook similarly does not have a stand-alone calendar application feature either. However, this is an arena that Facebook and its subsidiary apps like Instagram, Twitter, Messenger, and Whatsapp could divulge into since a lot of events take place virtually these days on these apps. It would definitely be a profitable venture on Facebook’s behalf, given the immense functionality of Calendar apps these days. This was also probably one of the many reasons that Yahoo map has decided to develop its own calendar app called the Day.
How will ‘Day’ Compete with the Other Calendar Apps in the Market? Why is it Different?
Yahoo decided to consciously take a different approach with the ‘Day’ in contrast to how other calendar apps under Google, Microsoft, or even Yahoo itself functioned before. Every other calendar app normally functions by syncing itself with the main interface, as did Yahoo before. This time although Yahoo’s mail team is looking after the manufacturing and design of the app, Jeremy le Van has received permission to work on the app rather independently and develop its design on his own. This would mean that the app could function without the Yahoo brand name or even without any of the previous Yahoo integrations whatsoever. Yahoo previously owned a calendar widget of sorts which worked in integration with Yahoo Mail. However, its popularity remains unascertained. One of the spokespeople from yahoo however categorically mentioned that “We are exploring different ways to better serve customers and that includes new ideas around mobile-first time management, calendar, and events.” Yahoo app has previously lost in competition with Google when it came to different areas like email, search engine, advertising, and videos. However, yahoo continues to believe that with the right kind of product and right kind of marketing, it is bound to become popular with its target audience. This is perhaps one of the many reasons that it brought on board Sunrise’s co-founder Jeremy and allowed him and his team the liberty to work on the app independently. The aim is to make the app function as a backbone to Microsoft’s own popular calendar app called Microsoft Outlook. For the fans of Sunrise who had lamented on the sun setting for the app, this new app from yahoo called ‘Day’, seemed to come as a new and improved version of Sunrise or Sunrise 2.0. Whether it would live up to the expectations of the previous app is questionable. But its designer Jeremy Le Van, who had also designed the Sunrise app has asked its fans to have faith in his team and his design of the product that he is developing on behalf of Yahoo.
Conclusion:
However one of the biggest challenges that the app could face is something that isn’t really taken into account by Yahoo. Recently a three billion dollar startup called Calendly, which is also a calendar app of the same account as the Day, faced enough impediments in the consumer market. In spite of the multiple functionalities of a calendar app, it is however never the go-to destination for any user. It somehow has still stuck to being a place to just mark events and days for any user. With the decreasing popularity of such apps in the market, it becomes questionable if Yahoo should have indeed invested in the “Day”. However only time can tell if Yahoo would withstand the competition in the market and the onslaught of decreasing popularity or like its predecessor Sunrise, become an immensely popular app among its target audience.
