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Wednesday, April 12, 2006 10:09 PM PT Posted by Harry McCracken
Google Does an Online Calendar
I've been playing with Google Calendar (aka CL2), the much-rumored service which is now live at calendar.google.com. It's a beta (surprise!), but a good one--probably the most Google-esque new Google tool in quite awhile. (My definition of Google-esque: clever, simple, useful, and obsessively respectful of the user.)Online calendars are nothing new (how long has Yahoo Calendar been with us?), and at first blush, Google Calendar looks much like its more well-established bretheren. You get multiple views (daily, 4-day, weekly, monthly, agenda) and the ability to create single and repeating appointments and invite other people. Pretty standard stuff.
But this calendar has a nicely-done user interface, plus collaborative tools that go beyond the basics. On the ease-of-use front, it's a true AJAX application with lots of highly interactive, impressively responsive features. Once you've created an event, you can move it or change its length by dragging and dropping it on the calendar, just like in a desktop program. Start typing the name of an invitee, and it'll get filled in from your Gmail address book. You can get a map from Google Local based on even sketchy information (I typed in "nova san francisco" and it plotted the location of Nova, the restaurant I was looking for.) And there's a neat feature called Quick Add that intelligently puts entries on your calendar based on brief entries such as "San Luis Obispo Trip April 21st," as shown here:
Oh, and as befits something called Google Calendar, you can Google calendars--both yours and public ones--via a search feature that's exactly as fast and friendly as you'd expect it to be.
Google Calendar has been called an Outlook Killer--not by Google, natch--but as nifty as it is, it's very, very far from being such. There's no printer-friendly view, as far as I can see (even Yahoo Calendar has one). (Correction! As a commenter points out, there is one; it is, however, pretty basic.) I don't see any To-Do feature, either. And the only options for exhanging information with other software and devices are a simple import feature that can bring in CSV and iCal formats, plus the ability to output a calendar as an RSS or iCal feed. I can't imagine anyone using Google Calendar as it stands for serious business scheduling--and if you're using the behemoth known as Outlook for lightweight tasks tht Google Calendar could handle, I feel sorry for you. (As for me, my day is documented in Lotus Notes and on my Treo; Google Calendar has no way to sync with either, so it's not going to be my primary calendar.)
But like I say, this service looks to be extremely useful as is--in part because of its collaborative features for friends-and-family use, which are good enough to bring the phrase "Evite killer" to mind. (If Google has a strategy for eventually making money off this thing, it presumably relates to Evite-like monetization of group event coordinaton.) You can invite anyone whose e-mail address you have to an event, then keep track of folks who accept the invitation. Calendars and events can be private or public, and you can create multiple, shareable calendars within one Google Account. A bloglike little built-in message board in every appointment record lets people talk amongst themselves. And Google has published information on how to create buttons to add to Web sites to let site visitors participate in Google calendar-based scheduling. Since it's Google, all this feels streamlined, and it's all ad-free...which is more than you can say for Evite or Yahoo Calendar.
Other than the missing features I've already mentioned, it's easy to pick additional nits. For one thing, Google Calendar feels only partially integrated with Gmail--it's easy to get from your calendar to your in-box, but not vice versa, and as far as I can tell, address book integration is one-way. (Your Gmail contacts show up in Google Calendar, but Gmail doesn't seem to do anything with new e-mail addresses you enter in the calendar.) Some other first takes on this service report that Gmail now recognizes meeting-related information in e-mail and adds it to your Google Calendar calendar; I haven't been able to verify this yet.
Some of the things I'm squawking about, I'm sure Google plans to fix. For now, Google Calendar feels like a very promising first draft of a next-generation calendar. (It's not the only one, by the way--30 Boxes has fewer features but is, in some ways, more innovative and imaginative.) Like even the best of the rest of the new generation of online productivity tools (such as Google's own Writely), it's as much a shot across Microsoft's bow as a fully-baked idea.
Still. it's amazing how far Web-based productivity apps have come in the past year...and I think that before the year is out, we'll see ones that truly are ready to take on Microsoft Office, at least for some users. A more refined Google Calendar might be among them, especially if Google goes to the effort of making it sync with other tools that people use to manage their time. (Hey, with Google Desktop, Google already has a desktop application that hooks deeply into the personal information on our hard drives. Synching would be a logical addition to the Desktop's features, no?)
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I've tested Google Calendar. And is particularly easy to learn for New users. Great UI, Inutuitive Features and is Googlesque. A knock out and a Game Changer.
FYI the printer-friendly view is the printer button located next to the "Day Week Month" tabs above the calendar.
if you're interested in how companies are making it easier to publish calendars which can be easily subscribed to from a google calendar, check out http://blog.trumba.com/2006/04/trumba_supports.html
Dear Sir/ Madame! When do you think, the new "Calendar" will be released for download?? Regards. eckart R
download? never. Google wants to keep everything on its servers.
I like it. I can see Google adding a few more features over time, but right now, except for a strong preference for GMail over Yahoo/Hotmail, I have no other overriding reason to use Google's calendar instead of those others.
30 Boxes isn't bad either, but again, since I use GMail, I'd prefer something that would be tightly integrated with that, which I feel reasonably confident Google will do pretty soon.
I've looked at Google calendar for only a few minutes but I was astonished to see a clever option under "Calendar Settings"-"Notifications"; you can have the calendar remind you via text message to your cell phone. I have never looked at other online calendars, so this may not be new (I have been using Outlook), but I think that is a great way to turn your phone into a PDA that never has to be synced to with your computer! (I just hope I can import Outlook appointments soon)
I love this & I can even change my color to Pink.
I have a Treo 650 device that I track all my events, phone numbers, etc., and use it as a camera, a video and telephone.
I see no advantage in the use of a computer calendar.
Please, if I am overlooking anything, do let me know.
I'm interested in the cell phone notification, too, but I haven't had time to play with it. I assume is standard SMS? I don't have a text messaging package on my phone, so using it like a pda for me would be 10 cents per reminder. Yipes!
I don't really see the usability of this product without some kind of integration with outlook.
I doubt your provider charges you $.10 per message received. Only those sent. Anyone can send you a message without you asking for it and run up your bill if that were the case.
why would they integrate it with outlook? google is trying to make themselves independant from M$ and in turn, making better software. I can now use the same calendar program from my linux pc, the macs at my university, and my windows pc at work. Genius! I might be almost organized now! I do wish they would integrate it with gmail though, have the whole package together?
Google maps and such already have this "send to phone" feature where you can send addresses and phone numbers found in google maps to your cell, btw.
@ Enzster
Not sure about all providers but Sprint charges 10c per message (even ones that you receive)...and i keep getting charged 10-20c every other month for spam...have called them once about this but the people were not too helpful...and, to be honest, the amount has not risen to a level where it gets to be a real bother so have not persisted.
According to the story on CNET, the product manager for Google said syncing with Outlook at mobile devices would follow "in the coming months".
So far I love it. But since everyone in my office uses Outlook, it's much easier to just accept meeting invitations with Outlook. Hopefully the sync with Outlook will run smoothly - and work through my company's firewall. If so, I'll be an avid user of Google Calendar.
ya, i'm with verizon and i hav to pay $.10 for every SMS i send and receive.
This sounds fantastic and I'm eager to give it a try. I do have a concern re: web apps, though. Just how secure is my personal data when its saved on Google's servers? I'm becoming increasingly nervous with all the phishing/pharming/spamming and whatever new threat is coming around the corner. Do I really want to put even more personal data out there? That goes for my cell phone number for txt alerts, too. I'd appreciate your opinions. Thanks.
im not a normally a calander person, because i find it takes too much time, typing in universty assignment hand in dates and what im doing, but to be able to type "BE2019 hand in date may 13" is really cool!!!! i will definatly carry on using it!!!
i have had text messaging 100% disabled from my carrier (Cingular) so I don't have to pay for spam.
"download? never. Google wants to keep everything on its servers."
Where else but on a central server would you keep a collaborative document? Would someone who wants to protect the document and make it ALWAYS available on his/her computer please stand forward? Possibly everyone could keep a working _draft_ on their computer.
In response to Enzster, its too bad but even T-mobile charges me 10c per received or sent txt msg...I fought with them over this and then had to buy a package :(
...and in response to Warren Hanna, your PDA could get lost and pc could crash, with google it's always secure...
Correction... Google finally added the little calendar/email selector to Gmail, so it is easy to go to calendar from Gmail now.
Re: ED: Is your calendar REALLY a concern for phishing, etc? Do you live a highly classified life?
Tried it, it sucks. You should stick with high quality MS products.
How is Google synonymous with ad-free? Nearly every Google web service has ads. You could be more accurate by saying "text-ad-only", but "ad-free" couldn't be more wrong. Ads are how Google survives.
Google seems to be focusing their non-search solutions on tacit interactions between Google users in addition to the individualized, a la Yahoo portal, content. Taken to it's logical conclusion, Google will probably end up acquiring or copycatting something like iRadeon's AppPortal, facing on demand software vendors like Netsuite and Salesforce headon, with an eye towards integrating intracompany search (and of course AdWord$) into the application mix. The implications of this strategic approach should be fairly scary for companies like Salesforce...ie what if Google can pull off the same functionality but not charge any subscriber fees...simply making money off AdWords clicks. It's quite possible...
Yeah, wow, it would be real nice if the calendar was integrated with Google Desktop. I'm working on PHP script that will parse the information and output it on my site, so I can't see why it would be hard for them to add the calendar as a module.
I guess I could sync it with my iPod, if it worked. Somehow. Through iCal, maybe.
Great calendar though. I'm adding all my practices and appointments in there, making things easier on me. :D
Cheers to the Calendar.