Many of us handle multiple schedules, roles, and groups. A working mother juggles schedules for her children’s cross country meets, theater practice, doctor’s appointments, meetings, and carpool groups. A book club coordinator tries to communicate get-togethers and reading schedules while creating a blog for her group. A veterinarian hopes to get his surgery, regular appointments, and staff schedules organized and easily accessible for everyone. A website called AirSet has a suite of web applications that can help these busy folks coordinate multiple community needs. Known for its calendar and group collaboration tools, AirSet is a place online where users can keep calendars, grocery lists, files, contacts, photo albums, group blogs, websites, collaborative sites called wikis, playlists, and links – all in one spot.
AirSet comes with an impressive bundle of free features, including 1 gigabyte of file storage, web hosting, blog feeds, and SMS notifications for calendar events. It’s this volume of reliable features that makes AirSet different from other group collaboration or calendar tools. You can keep separate information for every group of people in life, from your family to your bicycle club to your business – and you can send reminders via email or text message to members of any group about an event. Your AirSet files and information can be accessed wherever you have an internet connection – and you can keep your information private or share it with whomever you like. Community-building has never been easier.
Practical Uses:
- Keep a family calendar. Each family member can have events on her personal calendar while having access to the information from others
- Busy doctors, dentists, hairdressers, and other service providers can keep up-to-date with appointments scheduled by staff and access calendars, whether from home or the office
- Mom can update the grocery lists from home and ask Dad to print the list and use it at the store on his way home from work
- Group leaders can have email or text message reminders sent to members of the club, so everyone remembers to come for the Sunday get-together
- Collaborate, share files, and plan meetings with clients outside of your company
- Store family photos, family histories, and recipes online for immediate and extended families to share
- Teachers can create space for parents and students to view assignment due dates, field trips, and school events, as well as a log of what the class has been working on as a group
Insider Tips:
- Add your logo or family picture as your group image to personalize the page for each group you create
- If you’re an Outlook user at home or work, use AirSet’s desktop sync program to synchronize AirSet and Outlook calendars
- Use the “All Groups” calendar view to see all the events going on in your life at once, from personal and family commitments to meetings for work
What we liked:
- The service is packed with so many features that it can easily become a one-stop shop for groups and families
- AirSet makes it easy to share lists, calendars, and files with others in your group
- Both email and text message reminders can be sent to just you or to an entire group
What we didn’t like:
- Unlike more ubiquitous calendar systems like Google and Outlook, AirSet does not currently sync with outside web applications, like Jott or I Want Sandy
- The learning curve for some of the features, like wiki’s, can be steep
Alternatives:
Company Info:
- Launched: 2004
- Privately Owned
- Headquarters: Berkeley, CA
- Founded by Brian Dougherty
- Web site: http://www.airset.com
Costs:
- Free
- Premium accounts include extra storage for $2.00/month and mobile capabilities for $3.99/month
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