by Stephen Shankland
October 7, 2008 9:00 PM PDT

Yahoo plans to begin a beta test of a major overhaul of its online calendar Wednesday, a redesign that brings new advertising and social-networking possibilities.

The new site brings a more polished Web 2.0 interface, with drag-and-drop abilities, color-coded entries, Flickr image backdrops, and a slick "zoom" feature that expands a single day's schedule to a usefully large size when browsing in the monthly view. And picking up an ability from No. 2 rival Google Calendar, the new design finally moves beyond the narrow single-user calendar idea of the earlier design.

For example, people can subscribe to others' calendars, such as schedules for sports teams or college courses, and to share calendars publicly or with others who've been invited, said Scott Dietzen, who took over Yahoo's mail and communications business in June. And through a later upgrade, Yahoo will build in access to the company's Upcoming service to share and find events, he added.

This sidebar will show popular local events and--through the "vitality" information Yahoo users can share as part of the Yahoo Open Strategy--the events on the calendars of a person's top social contacts, Dietzen said. Yahoo Mail is used by about 278 million people each month, but Yahoo Calendar is relatively unknown with 8 million users, according to ComScore's August statistics.