About two weeks ago we released Plannr in the iTunes app store. My vision for Plannr has always been a mobile experience; your calendar is inherently mobile and highly personal, and it should be with you all the time. The app already more or less has feature parity with the web version of Plannr, and, of course, it takes advantage of features only available on a mobile device (e.g. location and push notifications).

My favorite aspect of the app is how natural and iPhone it feels. We took inspiration from apps we really liked– Calendar.app, Twitter, and Yelp, just to name a few, and made Plannr feel like Apple shipped it with your iPhone. The calendar view looks and acts like the built-in calendar. Plan creation feels exactly like writing an email. My favorite feature, sharing your location with all the invitees on a plan, is easy to find and pleasant to use.

Since its release, Plannr for iPhone has been downloaded several thousand times. It spent its first week in the store spotlighted in the New & Noteworthy section, which drove downloads to the brink of what our servers could handle. I’ve always wanted to make software that had scaling issues, and working on scaling is exactly as fun as I thought it would be, which is to say, very fun. Even more enjoyable, I’ve gotten lots of emails from Plannr users– some asking for help, some requesting features, and some just saying that Plannr is a cool thing that they like.

So, what’s next for Plannr? Keeping things quick and stable takes up a good amount of time, but there’s lots else to do. The third version of Plannr for iPhone, with more polish and a few oft-requested features (swipe-delete, GMail contacts sync, and a no-account option), is awaiting app store approval. We’re considering other mobile platforms, both Android and HTML, we’re building new features across all platforms, and we’re starting work on a pretty kickass way to monetize our products. everythingIsTheBest, LLC, has still gone without funding up to this point, but that’s also an option we’re considering.

If you have an iPhone, please do try it out. I’d love to hear your feedback.

Introducing Plannr.

We’ve rebranded PencilYouIn and given it an amazing new design. It’s prettier, faster, and more informal than before. It has a much better name. It’s the coolest piece of software I’ve ever worked on. For real, use it next time you’re getting dinner with four people. You won’t be disappointed.

Much thanks to our friend Joel Lewenstein for the design. The man has talent.

I’m finally getting around to writing about what I’ve been working on for the past two months. PencilYouIn is everythingIsTheBest, LLC’s latest product.

At Microsoft, I started using Outlook in its natural habitat: a large, structured corporation. As the 8-ball says, “Outlook not good”, but it really nails scheduling in the corporate world. I used the put-a-thing-on-someone’s calendar feature (called an “S+” after some ancient tradition) for every meeting that was less formal than stopping by someone’s office. Even as a generally unscheduled person, my Outlook calendar became authoritative for my work life. And it was good.

My real life continued on less scheduled than ever; I haven’t been a scheduler since I was in college. This presented an obvious inconsistency– the S+ makes me happier and more productive at work, but I have no remotely analogous tool in the real world. My schedule is maintained in my head and coordinated over emails and txts.

Obviously, Outlook is the wrong tool for coordinating my real life. It’s hyperformal because it grew up in the business world. And I don’t need a tool at all for the least formal events in my life. Nothing will ever replace a txt that says “hey come over and watch a movie”. But there’s a wide range of semi-formal, semi-scheduled stuff going on in my life, and I think PencilYouIn is the tool for those.

PencilYouIn puts things in your calendar and coordinates the details of your plans: time, place, and who’s coming. It’s lightweight. It stays out of your way. It syncs to your phone and your calendar. It txts you updates. You never have to sign up to use it. You can just cc it on an email. It gives you an easy way to contact everyone. You can share your location when you’re running late. It’s private until you make it public. It’s not an evite.

My calendar is social, just-in-time, and push. So why are iCal and Google Calendar just 1995 versions of a wall calendar? PencilYouIn is how I want to use a calendar in 2010.

More on the features of PencilYouIn later. For now, I encourage you to check it out.

We incorporated. We have a website. Now we just need a product.

A commemorative koan:

When Banzan was walking through a market he overheard a conversation between a butcher and his customer.

“Give me the best piece of meat you have,” said the customer.

“Everything in my shop is the best,” replied the butcher. “You cannot find here any piece of meat that is not the best.”

At these words Banzan became enlightened.