Google gossip: new calendar on the way?

Google has become in the last few years a leader not only in web search, but also in the area of online tools. They have quickly developed web tools that are now widely used, such as gmail, blogger, and google maps, to name a few.

What is missing in the offer of google is a good way of keeping personal information organized. Competing companies such as yahoo have implemented calendar and reminder systems for years.

According to Paul Kedrosky, sources from google said that this gap is close to be filled. A new calendar system is on its way, and could be released as early as tomorrow. The new feature would complement the already successful tools google developed for online organization, with its award winning gmail.

A new offer from google in this area would be very good news. Online calendar systems are not new, and everybody from microsoft to yahoo, and even older email systems such as lotus notes have one such feature. In my view, however, none of these are really simple to use, and google may bring a fresh view on the old concept. Using ajax technologies would be very beneficial for this kind of application.

Another advantage is to be able to get all data necessary to work online in the same website. Nowadays, if a user wants to maintain an online calendar, it has to rely on other websites, even when its main email system is gmail-based. It would be very good to have everything under the same account.

Finally, it would be possible to avoid duplication of data. Although gmail stores lists of emails in an efficient way, data still has to be imported and exported from/to other programs in order to have it available. A calendar system from google would allow us to use this data to make appointments and other scheduled events.