Test Balloon

Here's the idea:

I want to build a generic XML based standard for providing a publish/subscribe scenario for calendars. I want to turn this into a discussion board for it. I may eventually move it off to a workspace, such as GotDotNet.com or SourceForge.com.

Details:

There are tons of calendar applications. There's personal calendars (Hotmail), corporate (Exchange), and community (DotNetNuke). The inherit problem is that almost all of the calendar applications that exist today are all sealed systems. There no goodway to get information out or in them, and you can forget syncing calendars together. Plus, there really needs to be some common programming interface for using these valuable resources in programs today.

An example of the latter would be a scenario where you had to communicate with a resource. Let's say that you wanted to chat with me, but didn't know why I wasn't responding. If I could publish my Exchange Calendar information in a way that you could subscribe to it via MS IM, then you would know that not only am I not available, but I will not be available for another 2 hours.

So, Here's what I want to do:

1. Develop an XML standard communication format
2. Develop a standard communications process.
3. Develop a web service with a plugin architecture that will allow people to add the publisher to there system.
4. Develop some applications that consume and subscribe to the service.

Any suggestions? Ideas?