The Diary Blog

Our plans for new Diary iPhone Apps

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:33:05 +0000

Over 5,000 Diary Mobile Apps have been downloaded since we put our App into the Apple Appstore. Lots of you have made requests and changes to the App like:

‘Why do I have to join Diary.com to use the app?

‘No journal? Please add a journal!’

‘Give me the option to sync my Diary to Diary.com’

So from that feedback we are building some new Apps.

We will be re-categorizing the current version of the website and Apps to be called the ‘Classic Diary’ series, this is a ‘3 in 1’ Diary with Calendar, Journal and Task list all in one product. There will be two new apps …

Classic Diary Lite

What is it? An Agenda with Events, Birthdays and Anniversaries, a Journal and ToDos in a standalone Diary App only on your iPhone handset.

For: The casual Diary user.

Price: $0.99

Classic Diary Premium

What is it? A Diary Agenda with Events, Birthdays and Anniversaries, a Journal and ToDos on your iPhone handset and also sync’d, and backedup onto Diary.com. Access anywhere, anytime. You can view and edit your Diary with Diary.com, or your iPhone handset.

Your Diary Agenda also sync’s with your Facebook Events and Birthdays. Add comments, invite others to your events or accept invitations.

The Journal is text based and sync’d each time you add an entry.

ToDos are sync’d each time you add, edit or delete a task.

For: The advanced Diary user who wants their Diary backed up, accessible anywhere, and social.

Price: $9.99 per year

Why are we charging for Apps?

We are a small 4 man team, not venture funded (backed), so here’s the kicker, we have to charge you for the Apps. Meh! You may say but we have to make a living and the prices are very reasonable. We believe the price reflects the hard work, dedication and support we have for Diary products.

Diary Mobile is now live on iPhone Appstore. w00t!

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 11:21:58 +0000

You can download v1.0 of the Diary Mobile iPhone App at the Appstore from this morning. Please rate it and leave feedback here

The new Diary iPhone App unveiled at Barcelona Mobile Congress 16th/18th feb

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 14:10:17 +0000

Keld from Diary.com will be demoing the new Diary iPhone App at the Mobile Congress in Barcelona from Tues 16th to Thursday 18th next week. DM Tweet for meetups/meetings @keldster

Sneaky Peek at the new Diary iPhone App ...

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 09:54:00 +0000

Its the new Diary in Your Pocket. Its as close to a real-time Diary as you will get, so when you update from the App or Diary.com, updates are automatically updated. No refresh needed.

Here are some pre-release Screen shots of the new Diary iPhone App …

You’ll notice:

Above: an Agenda for all your Diary Events, Birthdays, Anniversaries and ToDo items in one place

Above: a ToDo section to manage all those tasks and chores

Above: Facebook Event and Birthdays auto-sync’d into your Diary
Above: RSVP and commenting on your Diary events

Offline Mode? Yes. When you are not connected to the ‘tinternet, you can use the App offline. The App will automatically sync any changes from the App or the site once it detects the internet. w00t!

We aren’t saying much apart from that.

Release date = Subject to Apple Approval :P

Design by Philipp, Coded by Peter, API by Ken, Cheering by Keld

Diary.com crew x

We’ve updated our Facebook Event and Birthday...

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:58:00 +0000

We’ve updated our Facebook Event and Birthday sync. Yay!

The improvements:

Syncs only Upcoming Events, none that you have declined.

Auto Sync Mode - Control your sync in Settings>Services which allows for ‘Auto Sync Mode’, so Facebook Events automatically sync to your Diary, on the right day. You will get notified of any new Events or Birthdays added.

RSVP link - you cant RSVP on Diary - Boo! But you can click through to Facebook, we’re working on this issue - Yay!

No duping of Facebook Events or Birthdays into your Diary

Please let us know what you think at our community page.

Thanks from us all here on a really grey, drizzly day in Shoreditch :)

Diary.com in Techcrunch Top Europe Tech 100. Sort of.

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 09:48:12 +0000

Techcrunch Top Europe Tech 100, a regularly updated Index of the most innovative and highest-potential European tech companies. The Index is focused on mobile and web companies, although Cleantech and gadget companies will have a presence on the list, which covers the EMEA region. The index has been created in association with startup tracker YouNoodle Scores.

Diary.com scored 11 on YouNoodle. Up 2.5. We aren’t going to win Gold this time, but we are rising up fast. Well done to all London startups. Buy British Mike!

So whats up with the Apple iPad? and more importantly how will...

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 18:02:04 +0000

So whats up with the Apple iPad? and more importantly how will Diary.com be working with it? A first glance shows a full screen Calendar, with very cool Calendar page turning and Calendar Sharing features. We’ll be having a closer look at it soon :) Our new Diary App will be out in February and can be used on the iPad as well. Depending on how quickly we get all the great things into the newer Diary App versions, will determine when we can customize for the iPad. We’ll keep you updated.

Diary.com in Wired Magazine

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 12:55:04 +0000

Who needs Silicon Valley when you’ve got a dirty, rubbish infested roundabout in London? Noone! Yes, we prefer our lovely roundabout here in Old Street, London. We got included in the hot, new, world changing startups happening around Silicon Roundabout in the latest print issue of Wired UK.

The online version is here

Diary.com supports TechHub! Techhub is a new space in London,...

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:43:27 +0000

Diary.com supports TechHub!

Techhub is a new space in London, co-founded by Mike Butcher from Techcrunch, it will be an open space where startups can find each other and build new and great companies.

View our message in support of Techhub here.

We will be supporting Techhub as it moves forward.

The Diary.com Team

Diary.com selected for Digital Mission to SWSXi to Austin, Texas, March 2010 & Barcelona goes Mobile Mad ...

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 16:17:00 +0000

Diary.com has been chosen with a handful of other UK startups to attend the SWSXi Festival Digital Trade Mission supported by the UK Trade and Industry Department.

We’ve decided not to go because we’re going to be at the Barcelona Mobile Congress, instead - Feb 16-18th. Its the Glastonbury of Tech Events in Europe. Even Eric Schmidt CEO of Google will be there for Gods sake.

We can only take so much time off for marketing, and drinking conference beer at events.

What can you expect from Diary.com in 2010?

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 13:05:22 +0000

We’re pretty excited at Diary.com about what we’ve achieved in 2009 and are looking forward to 2010.

Our mission is to build the Worlds Best Diary which help you organize your life better.

Here’s how we are going to do it next year:

Go mobile, so you can have your Diary in your pocket. w00t!
Match what you love and whats coming up, from sites and services you use already. Never forget!
Make it super easy to share tasks with close friends and co-workers
Auto assemble stuff on what you’ve done, keeping a nice memory to share
Some other secret sauce we can’t talk about yet ;)

We’ll be powering down a little bit next week and taking a short rest as its Holiday season. We would just like to say ‘Thank You!’ to all of you who use Diary.com and supported us in 2009.

Happy Christmas, Happy Hanukkah … Happy Holidays!

The Diary.com Team x

Keld, Peter, Ken, Philipp, Robin, Phil, and Derek.

Import your Facebook Events and Birthdays ...

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:06:58 +0000

We’ve released our Facebook Events and Birthdays Sync. Why should
you be as excited as we are about this feature? Diary.com allows you to
automatically fetch and store your Facebook Events you are connected with as well as friends Birthday dates.

Facebook does not have a calendar and most of the calendar apps are poor quality. Now you with this feature can plan around those Facebook Events in your Diary and never forget them.

You’ll find it in the Right hand column after you’ve signed up or logged in. Just ‘Connect with facebook’

You can then import Birthdays (below), just add the Birthdays you want …

And then Facebook Events (below), just add the events you want …

You’ll get Birthday reminders by email before the Birthday date
so you can send real birthday cards or flowers on time. We’ve negotated
some discounts of up to 10% for flowers for you send.

Now you can keep a more useful, networked Diary and it gets you just, a bit more organized.

Why Diary.com will be a key product for 2010 ...

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 16:20:17 +0000

Monotype Imaging, leaders in brand management ran a survey of over 2,000 mobile users recently. The question they asked was…

Q: “Aside from voice calls and text, what do you do on your mobile?”

Here is the amazing activity answer from the 2,000+ users surveyed:

17.3% Surfing the Web

16.7% Diary

16.6% Checking Emails

10.3% Train Times

10.5% Maps/GPS

10% Cinema Times

7.4% Book a Restaurant

3.1% Banking

Diary was the second most popular activity after Surfing the Web, even beating Checking Emails. The demographic breakdown revealed over 35 year old used their Diary app WAY more than any other app. From 25-35 age band it was clearly the second favourite activity. Only Sub 24 years old did it slip to 3th or 4th place.

So users are clearly using this ‘Diary’ application. But …. the application design and feature set does not reflect its popularity and hasn’t really changed for over 10 years! What do you find on native calendars? Basic Calendars with no rich features, no intelligence, no filtering. You do all the work on the Calendar and it gives you very little in return. No wonder users are not excited by Calendars! Times need to change. Diary.com is working hard to create a new exciting Diary product for mobile and web users.

Diary.com will be the lead product in the market addressing these problems.

Source: Julie Strawson, Monotype Imaging, Heroes of Mobile Conference, Dec 7 09. Sample 2,000 users

Heroes of the Mobile Screen ...

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:13:57 +0000

Keld will be at Heroes of the Mobile Screen at the BFI Southbank on Monday 7th December.

Agenda Improvements ...

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 16:51:13 +0000

Our job is to make the best Diary on the web and on your mobile phone that helps you make plan, organise and record your private and social life just a bit easier. Some of the design improvements we make are almost unnoticeable to you, but we put a lot of effort into making it ”just right’.

Two Agenda Updates going live tonight. First off a new ‘day/week/month’ Agenda view …

Plus Mini Cals are now linked at the ‘Month’, and takes you to that month = easier to navigate through your Diary!

Happy Wednesdays.

Noahs Arc ...

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 17:17:18 +0000

Keld will be attending the first Noah Internet CEO Conference 2009 this Monday 30th.

We’re very proud of our new Space Invaders on our walls at...

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 17:08:21 +0000

We’re very proud of our new Space Invaders on our walls at Diary HQ!

You've just got a bit more organized ...

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 12:53:44 +0000

We’ve added a new feature called the Weekly Agenda Email which you get every Monday morning. This email is a highlight of all your upcoming weeks activity; like Events you’re attending or need to RSVP to, ToDos that you need to do, and any Birthdays and Anniversaries to remember that week.

With the Weekly Agenda Email you can stay on top of your calendar ahead of your plans for the week with ease. so give Diary.com Weekly Agenda email a go, its automatic so you don’t need to do anything, to switch it off just go to Diary.com>Settings>Email Preferences …

Diary goes mobile

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:19:00 +0000

We like updating you behind the scenes at Diary.com. Some of you ask who we are. We’re based in Sunny Shoreditch near a lot of other Web startups. We’re always busy on planning and building kick ass Diary features that are in our pipeline. All in our quest to make the worlds best Diary product to help you organize your life.

We’re right in the middle of building the Mobile Diary …

The Design

Diary.com going mobile is the next logical step of it’s evolution for me. And what could be a more exciting start than tapping into the iPhone ‘App-sphere’? Having previously used and been inspired by Things, a simple but amazing tool focusing on to do list only (which unfortunately also only works on Apple’s devices) I was excited about the opportunity of designing something similar useful and hopefully even more powerful for our users.

Syncing Diary.com with your phone you can not only manage your day-to-day ToDos but it also enables you to keep a journal, share thoughts, pictures and links with your friends, manage events and see what your friends are up to - all of that while you’re on the go. For me, it sort of bridges a gap between Facebook and GCal… It is said that designers should never design for themselves, but I have to admit that I really look forward to using this app for myself and finally get organised ;)

Philipp

Philipp is Diary.coms ‘Yoga-loving-Rock-Star-Designery-Type’. He uses a lot of Green Tea and old fashioned paper to dream about improving Diary.com and add new features. His love of Yoga reflects in his clean Zen approach to Design. He are some early sketches of the iPhone App show the three main sections of the Agenda, Updates (stream) and ToDos.

The Engineering and Coding

Peter is up to his knees in coding the iphone App and deciding whats gonna work best and how its built.

What’s most exciting to me about this app is that it is creating an entirely new channel focused purely on informing users about things that are important in their life. Putting together “what’s happening” information from lots of places GCal, FaceBook, Outlook, Diary.com etc… and showing it in the most convenient place - a mobile phone. Reminding you well ahead of time, of what’s important, when it needs to be done, and who else is involved.

Diary & phone - you can’t do it on your own….

Peter

Peter is highly experienced and always buried in code and can program in lots of languages. He is always thinking of new features. Peter bought Diary.com in 1996 when he was celebrating a win by Leeds FC. Its the best decision he’s made.

p.s Noone is sure whats happened to Leeds FC

The API

The API to get all the Event, ToDo, Birthday and Annivesary data streaming back to your iPhone and into Diary.com and back again was built by Ken. Ken is our CTO. We ask Ken everything and he knows everything. He was too busy to comment on the Diary iPhone.

Why the Diary is one of the next breakthrough spaces

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:13:00 +0000

Upstart Facebook App Social Calendar hit gold when behemoth Hallmark invested in them this week. Hallmark previously looked upon as a ‘dead-tree’ Card provider stumbling blindly around the social web, but has recently has been getting its act together. It has released some good useful tools, and top content around Movie Syndication Cards, a Popular E-Card Subscription Plan, Mobile Cards and Print-On-Anything products.

How did SocialCalendar get it right as a product?

1. By Zoning in purely on facebook users and not other platforms or a website where they would have to generate trasffic too. A lot of email notifications from websites go to junk folders so people never get the important messages/invites, but on facebook users get notified on the platform so they (tend) did not miss the messages in spite of also receiving emails (even though they may get an email as well). This increases KPIs and = higher engagement.

2. Planning is inherently viral, you tend to do it with others.

3. By Building on the back of successful programs such as Amazon Wishlist and facebook credits means faster deployment of valuable and useful tools wuth trusted partners with no build or deployment cost.

SocialCalendar encouraged and built a huge user base plus it and gave Hallmark a chance to get involved in a meaningful way. Good for them. A lot more brands are coming onto facebook and would do a lot worse than buy into succesful apps and avoid the crash and burn most brand apps suffer from. Once that money tap is turned off paying for App installs numbers crash to zero. I have seen the graphs.

And yet, with all the positives that I have outlined, I have some concerns, critisizm with the product. I feel it is restricted in the facebook framework and not user friendly enough. The general complexity of the product and its UI and calendaring experience but they’re pretty restricted in the facebook layout. The product needs to be simpler.

So why did Social Calendar grow so fast?

Raj Lalwani, CEO of SocialCalendar, says that growth can be attributed to:

The inherent virality of the application’s core functionality – adding friends’ birthdays (and other events) to your Social Calendar is a very natural use case that leads to application growth
The compelling context of the application’s emails and notifications – reminding users to send a message or give a gift to their friends when it’s their birthday or a national holiday works well

So what about the deal?

Social Calendar has 2 million users but is probably financially not even breaking even, although it could be close making less than break even, by making money on those annoying Facebook Icon Card credits ands some low CPM App ads. The overheads will be super low, on the other hand with only a 3 or 4 man team keeps a low cost base. Social Calendar would have got an investment from Hallmark based on a per user basis, with active users and future revenues being the driver for valuation rather than their cashflow today. However looking at some acquisition data like 0.05cents per user Slide buyout of Favorite Peeps, awhile ago, this would give SocialCalendar $100,000 (2,000,000 active users valued at 5 cents each). Seems way too low. I bet they got $1 or less plus some salary. Even that’s all insanely low compared to the all time high of $300 per facebook user. A low valuation would be at $1 to $2 million with Hallmark taking around 30% with a first option to buyout the rest linked to performance targets, or a top end valuation at $3 to $ 4 million.

The Social Calendar product failings?

1. Its Movie Showtimes are only US. Movies Showtimes should be international.
2. No mobile application! People are increasingly going to want to plan and organise on the move. Mobile applications will become the bulk of usage for this activity.
3. If Movies why not Music and other interest areas? People plan and socialize around many areas not just Movies.
4. Poor Card and Icon artwork. The Cards and icons look just …. a bit crappy.

Where the Social Calendar fails Diary.com will succeed.

Diary.com will look to address some of these product failings. Calendaring is such a dusty place that noone has looked at for years, at last people like Social Calendar and Diary.com are bringing new life to this space, and its going to blow up as users are demanding it.

Think about it, you are going to be carrying your phone in your pocket updating and planning as you go.

Users will increasingly be confused by the issues of incompatibitly from web to mobile, and from various data sources to their diary planners.

This space will hot up next year, all the big mobile players are going to realise people who plan do it with others and tend to stick with the software if it works for them. Calendaring (and Journalling) suck at the moment. There is a big opportunity for the right product.

Keld