A good segment of Google fanboys (like me) are hotly anticipating Google' new Calendar, CL2. Apparently, it's in limited release right now, to a small group of 200 'trusted testers'.
When will it come out? Here's my prediction: April 1st, 2006.
Think about it. Gmail was launched April 1, 2004. Remember how revolutionary it was? One Gig of space. Fast, spiffy AJAX design. It really took the tech world by storm. Fast search. People (including myself) were buying invites on eBay, and there were reviews everywhere. Some politician in California heard about the contextual advertising, and wanted to pass a law to ban it.
Then, the next April 1st, 2005? Well, tons of new features, and another shot across the bow: two gigs of space. And the number of space keeps growing (and still does on the homepage.) Now it's almost close to three gigs of space.
The next revolution? A spiffy AJAX calendar that's smart and tied into your Gmail. Sure, 30 Boxes, with its AJAX design and smart interface (even a Gmail skin!) has stolen a bit of Google's thunder, but I still think CL2 has a few tricks up its sleeve. The biggest I think will be the ability to scan your email for calendar dates and have a button to add that to your calendar. Or even clicking on a day of the month, and seeing all email in your inbox that references that day. That's a function that I suggested to them about a year ago, and which I don't think anyone's doing right now. It would really add seamless integration between calendar and e-mail.
So anyway, I think as (recent) history shows, they'll most likely wait until April 1 to make that announcement. If they don't, they'll no doubt have something up their sleeves for Gmail's second birthday.
2 comments:
I didn't know about that 'contextual advertising'... kind of creepy. I personally am a big fan of Google but they are starting to creep me out... they keep offering ridiculous amounts of space for everybody and encourage everyone to not delete their emails (there has to be a reason for that), they have bots that scan all your personal email/profiles etc for advertising (they also do it on your blog if you signed up for blogger and have adsense)... basically they are building a MASSIVE consumer profile database... they are brilliant... but at some point you have to think the power corrupts...
A little creepy, but personally, I don't care. I don't house any dark secrets, and I trust Google enough to know that they won't steal my bank account info and steal money from me, so beyond that, what impact will it have on me?
It's the same as the Airmiles thing. I used to revolt against it because it was basically a way of gathering consumer demographic spending data. But then I thought, who cares? The negative consequences to me are neglible, so the tradeoff of free stuff is worth it.
And plus, I do think that companies having that info does help them better market to me in the future. I'd rather not see diaper ads if I don't have a baby.
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