Mike Blumenthal pointed to a New York Times article yesterday that allows consumers to make online appointments for doctors, dentists, dinner and da like, er, the like. I’m a big believer in this sort of technology (Full disclosure: My company has a stake in a booking engine for hotel and spa reservations, primarily for the luxury market). These types of tools represent “the last mile” for many businesses that haven’t embraced ecommerce, and more importantly, couldn’t, due to the nature of their businesses (i.e., service providers). Check them out. And give me a call if you’re looking for a great luxury spa or hotel booking engine 
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Tim, one of my design clients (a massage therapist) asked me about this option, and I was totally ignorant. Thanks for the info.
Now over a year since your post on the subject, what kind of track record have these firms built up? What percentage of clients in the “caring” professions make use of online scheduling? I know I would!!
I’m suggesting to my own client that we go and talk to a couple folks here in the Portland, OR, area who are using such packages. One is signed up with what appears to be a new firm (Australian) which is free. Do you imagine they will start charging when they are better established? Would we essentially be beta testers?
Hi occassia,
Thanks for the comment. While I can’t tell you specifics on each of these, it’s clear that they’re gaining traction among customers from this Compete graph (note: HourBook is now called BookFresh):
I haven’t seen many customer reviews for any of the services, but the traffic growth – particularly for Genbook – seems to show they’re gaining business for themselves – and for their users.
Good info. Thanks, Tim!
Glad you enjoyed, occassia. And thanks for reading!