Westborough, Massachusetts
(PRWEB) -- Dec 18, 2004. Mediabee is announcing the
launch today on download.com of their groundbreaking
software product, the Mediabee Group Planner & Dashboard,
Family Edition Version 1.0. Founded by the former chief
architect of Fidelity's retirement planning website,
Mediabee's product offers a sophisticated but pragmatic
solution to help busy families communicate better and
improve harmony.
In the Oct 15, 2003, edition of the Wall St Journal,
Walt Mossberg wrote "With both parents often working and
children's lives packed with activities, the problem of
meshing everyone's schedules has become acute."
Whether you're a busy mother wishing to check on childrens'
homework between meetings, a harried dad anxious to know
whether your older parent has taken his medication, or a
divorced parent trying to coordinate child-rearing
responsibilities with your ex, now there is a solution
that could make your life easier and less stressful.
Aimed at helping busy families and workgroups coordinate
schedules easily using their PCs and cell phones, this
software offers breakthrough usability and a simple,
visually appealing, user interface that captures your
imagination at first glance. A deeper look reveals a
thoughtful and sophisticated solution to the real problems
busy families face in scheduling and communications.
Mediabee claims to solve the so-called "entry problem"
for home calendaring. Busy families want easy-to-use
solutions that that motivate their youngsters and don't
require constant feeding. A number of features are geared
towards these requirements.
The planning tools mimic current tools people use - the wall
calendar, sticky notes, and day planners - but are far more
powerful. Using an intuitive shorthand that can be mastered
in minutes, you can quickly enter information for multiple
people without the complicated dialog boxes of most
calendaring software such as Microsoft Outlook or personal
digital assistants (PDAs).
A progress meter and audio reminders can help motivate
youngsters to complete their chores and homework on time.
The company claims their youngest user, six-year-old Emma,
learnt how to use it all by herself.
The collaborative listmaking feature allows you to help and
be helped by your friends, family, and community in keeping all your
schedules up-to-date. It holds great promise for civic
groups, parent-teacher associations, etc., as well as families
that just want to band together, to make life easier for everyone.
For example, you can join with neighbors who have children
in the same class as yours and divvy up the responsibility to
put in homework schedules or band practice that you can then
easily share with each other or the entire community.
The collaborative calendaring feature could help you reduce
the email clutter that happens when a group is trying to schedule
an activity.
With Mediabee, you can get reminders on your cell phone,
and access from anywhere with the browser. A sticky note interface
lets you instantly zap a curfew reminder text message to your
teenager or a grocery list to your spouse's cell phone.
Then there are the usual features you'd expect from software
like this. A built-in address book provides quick access,
including one-click directions. A birthday planner reminds you
of birthdays, anniversaries, etc.
Some bonus features seal Mediabee's utility as the preferred
calendar for the digital home:
- Rich weather information is piped to your desktop continually
- The included photo player is sure to surprise and delight
you by playing photos randomly from your collection as you
use the software
- Kick back and improve yourself using the web player to "play"
the web for useful or entertaining information
If you have a PC or laptop in the kitchen or you have been
thinking about it, Mediabee would be perfect to run on it. But
even if you don't, if you use a PC at home to check email regularly,
you'll find Mediabee a great accessory - especially at the price:
it's free for a limited time. Just make sure you have Windows XP
or Windows 2000. The company is apparently working on,
but has not announced availability of, Mac and Linux versions.
This is the kind of software you've probably dreamed of - made
for this, the decade of Digital Living. Give it a whirl today and
you just might make your life more coordinated and less stressful.
Learn more by visiting http://mediabee.com. You'll find a multimedia
overview of the application and you can also get a picture
of Mediabee's youngest user, Emma, who, at six years old, figured out
how to use the software all by herself, much to the delight
and surprise of her parents. You can download the software
there or at http://download.com.
If you're unable to see the picture included in this release, please
use the following link: http://mediabee.com/pad/animated.gif.
For additional information, contact Saro Saravanan at 508-341-2042.
About Mediabee
Mediabee was founded in 2002 by Saro Saravanan, the chief
architect who launched Fidelity NetBenefits while he was
at Fidelity Investments. A software industry veteran and
serial entrepreneur, Saro's unique focus on user experience helped
him produce award-winning world-class products used by over
10 million users today.
A late 2003 study conducted by Cogent Research for Mediabee
shows that 87% of households with PCs and PDAs still use
wall calendars and day planners for coordinating their daily activities.
Mediabee's mission is to bring to life the 21st century
Wall Planner — an alternative solution that consumers would
love to adopt — on PCs, cell phones, Internet TVs, plasma
displays, security panels, set-top boxes, media centers,
home gateways — whatever devices customers choose. To that end,
we have created a platform-independent system with a flexible
architecture. Mediabee's passion to bring this product
to market is driven by research, real-life user feedback,
and rapid innovation.
CONTACT INFORMATION
Saro Saravanan
508-341-2042
707-222-0363 (fax)
http://mediabee.com
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