Like shopping portal Stuff.com, Redwood City, California-based When.com has chosen the first Monday in November as an auspicious launch date for its new site. Where Stuff.com is focused on products, When.com is, appropriately enough, concentrating its resources on the rapidly expanding market for event scheduling and personalized calendaring. The company says that users can use the site to track events that interest them and coordinate plans with their families and friends. At present, Personal and Group Calendars are maintained separately, but eventually When.com hopes provide access to both via a single account. When.com’s content partners include Hollywood Online, barnesandnoble.com, RealNetworks, Music Boulevard, Tribune Media, CMP, the Weather Channel and Astrology.net. What has intrigued observers is whether the company will seek partnerships with one or more of the major portal sites. Yahoo and Lycos already have their own calendaring services, Lycos through Amazon acquisition Planet Online, but that doesn’t necessarily preclude them from venturing further into the market. A spokesperson for When.com suggested that the company is most likely to pursue an OEM strategy, much like Inktomi in search engines and iName in free web-based email. When.com aims to be the Switzerland of calendars, she said.
