Weekly rant time: how frustrating is it when you are in the middle of something – anything – and you get a text from a friend to catch up?! You can’t quite justify downing tools and heading off, or trying to re-organise your day to fit this in. But…you do actually want to see them! I’m not advocating for planning your day to the minute (honestly, who can be bothere – or wants! – to do that). But I do think it should be easier to balance your day. Enter Calendate.it, a smart little event-planning tool for iOS, designed to make those intimate gatherings that little bit easier to get off the ground.
The main contender for this new kid on the block is obviously the omnipresent Facebook. Online, we’re all connected anyway through Zuckerberg’s globe-dominating channel, so it makes sense to organise everything from there, correct? In practise however, this just doesn’t work. I don’t know about you, but every Facebook invite I receive is accompanied by a certain suspicion. There’s usually an undercurrent of self-validation/promotion, or an ‘en masse’ come one come all feeling. Does Person X really want me at the birthday/film or do they just have to be seen to want you there? Do they actually know they invited me? And woops, I missed that actualy birthday party I wanted to go to because it was buried in a flood of play/gig/club events from people I don’t even know!
Calendate.it does a great job of removing the noise from event organising. It’s sole purpose is to smooth over the often troublesome job of getting a group of friends in the same place at the same time. Anyone who’s using it is part of the group, so there’s no pretence. Even the interface itself is no-nonsense. Simple and direct, the app retrieves your friend data from your Facebook account (with absolutely no nasty side-effects such as wall posts or spam mail) and allows you to get socialising from there. You set the place, the time and date, and even have the option of assigning your event with its very own hashtag. If you and your pals post on any social media site with the designated hashtag, Calendate.it will smartly aggregate the posts, providing you with a collection of your photos and statuses,. It’s a nice little feature that lends itself to the overall ambition of the app; bringing friends together.
If you’re tired of the oversaturated, socially-conscious world of Facebook invites and aren’t looking to discover new events or bands, the online world is a cruel place to socialise. If you’re a fan of more intimate gatherings that are a little more relaxed, get downloading Calendate.it to help you out. It’s simple, it’s effective and most importantly, it wants you to have a good time.
Make a date with the iTunes store to streamline your calendar for free with Calendate.it.
Make a date with the iTunes store to streamline your calender for free with Calendate.it.
