International Date Formats…finally

In our latest release we addressed one of the top user requests, giving TripIt travelers the option to view dates in a format other than the U.S.-centric mm/dd/yyyy.  While we can’t defend the U.S. decision to be different, we thank our many non-U.S. travelers for their patience and hope they will enjoy TripIt with the date format of their choice.

Here are some additional international viewing options available in TripIt:

• Time on either a 12 or a 24 hour clock.

• Distance in either miles or kilometers

• Temperature in either Celsius or Fahrenheit.

All of the above settings can be changed from the My Account page.

-Scott

Comments

[Tony H]

Sigh... While I thank you for doing *something* about the date format, imho you've done the *wrong* thing. The problem with formats like mm/dd/yyyy is not just regional preference - it's ambiguity. When I get email or a confirmation with a date of 3/4/2008, it is completely useless because it's ambiguous, not because I happen to prefer one format or another. So I have to use various heuristics to come up with the best guess, or if it really matters, then I have to verify the date using some external means.

The *right and proper* way to do this is to use the ISO8601 format yyyy-mm-dd and preferably only that format. At the very least, give your users the option to do it right.

There's a good presentation of ISO 8601 at http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-time.html

[Moof]

How about also adding a "first day of the week" option? I'm used to it being Monday, not Sunday, and some countries have Saturday as the first day of the week...

Also, +1 on the possibility of using ISO8601 date formats