Hello Rod.
One thing i never see is a "countdown"...
What it should do:
counting down amounts of time (hours, days, minutes years etc.) it would be nice if i can say countdown 3 days from this moment or opposite: countdown to a specific point in time (future) It should consider timezones etc. (so saturday 2 PM CET will automatic calculated the time for another time zone.) It also should be able to change "state" after reaching the time. (this could be as simple as a text #1 before reaching the timepoint changing in a text #2 after passing the time.
nice options would be: "time to go" and after that "time passed since" that point. Another nce option would be a mail (warning me that the time has come) or more advanced a early warning on a pre-selected interval. (1 day before, 2 hours before and finnaly 1 hour before and last 10 minutes every 10 minutes... a little bit overdone, but the idea is clear.)
The alert should be combined with a role (so you can subscribe to the role)
Where to use: i run games and we always have problems in getting the time zones right, so its difficult to get all people online at the same time. (worldwide)
Another use could be alerting my customers via a mailing that the server will be down for maintenance. (and they can check on the countdown how much time there will be left)
Paul.