RIM To Shut Down Tungle.Me, Team Will Focus On BlackBerry 10 Calendar App

Last year, BlackBerry maker RIM acquired the social calendaring app Tungle.me. Since then, the Tungle team mostly focused on the BlackBerry Calendar app for RIM’s less than successful Playbook tablet. Now, the team that built Tungle is working on the native Calendar app for the upcoming BlackBerry 10 operating system. In addition, the company’s founder Marc Gingras noted in a post on Tungle’s blog today that his team is also “driving innovation in Messaging (email), Contacts, Notes and Memos apps.” This, however, means that there is little time to focus on the core Tungle product, and RIM has now decided to shut the service down on December 3, 2012.

Tungle.me launched in 2009 and, at that time, was at the forefront of the social calendaring trend. The company raised about $6.36 million before its acquisition by RIM.

The service will continue to remain up and running until December. After that, Gingras says, Tungle’s current users should consider switching to Doodle, which offers a very similar feature set and was actually founded a few years before Tungle. He also hopes that his team’s “efforts on BlackBerry 10 will bring the same dedication and excitement.”

Here is the key part from Tungle’s message:

Tungle began in 2006 to make finding times to meet with colleagues, clients and contacts as quick and easy as possible. In April of 2011, we were acquired by Research in Motion (RIM) with the goal of bringing the Tungle vision to millions of BlackBerry customers. After our acquisition we quickly went to work and built the BlackBerry Playbook Calendar app. Now, our team is creating the native Calendar app for the next generation platform, BlackBerry 10, and together with other key RIM employees, we are driving innovation in Messaging (email), Contacts, Notes and Memos apps.

All of our new responsibilities within RIM are very exciting; however, it hasn’t left much time for innovation on the core Tungle product over the past year, as we’re sure you have noticed. To make the most of our new focus, we have sadly decided it is time to shut down the standalone Tungle service.

As of Monday, December 3rd, 2012 we will shut down the standalone Tungle service. You will continue to be able to use your Tungle.me page until then to schedule meetings and share calendars.