Why integrate a calendar in your online community? I highly recommend that publishers, especially those that serve a geographically local area, add an events list or calendar to their site. In addition to giving users yet another reason to return to your site, Calendar Hub lays out the user benefits quite clearly:

Stay Organized – reminders and deadlines for social, business and special events, including editorial & advertising closing dates.

Coordinate Your Team – to-do lists, tasks, milestones and to see what everyone else is doing and coordinate better.

Promote Yourself – special offers, limited-time sales & discounts and announcements, from groups & businesses.

Inform Your Audience – school dates, federal & commemorative holidays, meetings, festivals and more!

Stay in Touch – RSS, iCal and vCard standards can help you get reminders or import events into your own, private calendar , cel or iPhone.

There are many choices to add a calendar to your site – too many in fact – but I do have some requirements for any calendar that is to be integrated into a community before selecting among the many available options.

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Social Mention is a search engine that scans major sources of user-generated content such as blogs, comments, news, bookmarks, and microblogging services such as Pownce and Twitter to discover what people are saying about you, a company, a product or any other topic.

Search results are collected from heavily-trafficked social media sources, including Google blog search, Twitter, Delicious, FriendFeed, Flickr, Digg, YouTube etc. and conveniently remixed as a single stream of information. You’ll find this helpful to track your reputation, identify partners & clients, or learn about trends in your field of expertise.