“What are you doing this weekend?” is an everyday inquiry – almost to a fault. UpTo attempts to disrupt this social interaction by making calendars social. And it works, too. By broadcasting part of your calendar, it allows friends, families (and perhaps stalkers) to subscribe to your calendar. Plus, the platform integrates many businesses’ calendars, including the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers thanks to a recent partnership.
The platform launched on iOS back in March and it’s now available on Android. The Android app looks and works like its iOS counterpart. The social stream is the main focus. Slide right to access groups, more calendars, and settings. Setup takes a few seconds. After logging in, you’re presented with a suggested friends list. The next screen offers suggested business to follow including TechCrunch’s custom stream as well as the Cleveland Cavaliers and other sports teams.
I spoke with UpTo’s co-founder Greg Schwartz at the Madison Building in downtown Detroit. He pitches the company with a rhetorical question “Why can’t I jump on a social platform and see what a person has coming up tonight? An hour from now? A week from now?” That’s where UpTo comes into play.
The team started on UpTo 18 months ago. Schwartz says it was born from the rampant fragmentation of calendars. They’re scattered online and offline. With UpTo, the startup hopes to bring everyone’s calendars into one place which happens to allow for easy sharing.
Schwartz is very excited about the Cavaliers partnership. The Cavs will start promoting UpTo as a way for fans to follow upcoming events. “We’re very excited to partner with UpTo to provide our fans a unique and highly effective way for them to connect with the Cavaliers and with each other,” said Brandon Jirousek, Cavaliers senior manager of digital content and operations.
Now that UpTo is on Android, the team’s next goal is to open up the platform to make it as easy as possible to create a calendar stream. This will allow businesses and users to make a stream separate from their calendars — think a local sports team’s schedule or small business staffing schedule. They expect this feature to be available in early 2013.