Tungle makes scheduling meetings a bit easier

I love applications that have a simple premise, because they tend to be the most useful. So when I got an email announcing the release of Tungle for BlackBerry, it took me only a few seconds to realize the utility of the application. The premise: it’s tough to schedule meetings because you just never know when the other party is free. Even if you do manage to schedule something, the possibility of a double-booking still looms. Tungle helps avoid these conflicts by creating a system of invitations and shared calendars, which makes scheduling meetings and appointments a bit easier.

From my limited experience, the best way to use Tungle is as a social network of sorts. The more colleagues you share your calendar with, the more information you’ll have at hand. You can then overlay calendars of shared contacts and, hopefully, find an appropriate time to schedule a meeting or appointment. Your calendar will display only what you want it to, so you can allow your contacts to only see that you’re either busy or available. In other words, there’s no need to share too much information.

Once you find an appropriate time you can send an invitation to one or more contacts. The invitation system allows sends to choose more than one time, and receivers to select from among them. Tungle handles replies and adjustments, making life easier for all participants. It also adjusts for time zone, a common oversight.

Tungle works with your existing calendar, whether that be Outlook, Google Calendar, iCal, Entourage, or Lotus Notes. It also integrates with social networking services like Facebook and LinkedIn. Best of all, it’s free. You can get Tungle by heading to their website, which will send a download link to your device. You can also download Tungle OTA here — or here for Storm users. It requires OS 4.5 or above.