fbCal Gives External Access To Facebook Events

fbCal is a Facebook application that allows users to export date specific information from Facebook to external calander services including Apple iCal, Mozilla Sunbird, Google Calendar, and Microsoft Outlook.

To setup, users add the fbCal application via the fbCal page here. The app setup is simple, you tick that you give permission for the app to access you Facebook data. Next the app offers links to that data that can be added to the calendar tools listed above.

To setup with Apple iCal, you go to subscribe in the Calendar drop down menu then copy and paste the URL’s provided by fbCal. There are two URL’s, one for user birthdays and the other for Events. And that’s pretty much it. Immediately you have desktop access to all relevant events, including all supporting info such as time, location and description from Facebook. As it’s a subscription pull it also automatically updates with future events.

A demo shot below of what it looks like for me. The downside for Facebook is that a fair bit of the time I spend on Facebook is event related, I’m likely to spend less time now visiting Facebook.