It's about time

Posted by Carl Sjogreen, Product Manager

We're all busy people. Whether it's work or play, school or family, every day is filled with stuff that takes time. Keeping track of schedules isn't easy, and frankly we haven't been too happy with the tools available. So we invite you to try Google Calendar -- a tool that simplifies keeping track of events, special occasions, and appointments -- whether they’re on your own agenda or on the calendars of contacts who opt to share their schedules with you.

First, we tried to make it fast and easy. You can add events just by clicking and entering one line of simple event information. No muss, no fuss, no cumbersome forms to fill out. And it’s integrated with Gmail so you can add events mentioned in messages to your calendar with just one click.

Second, we wanted to make sure you could use it to see all the events in your world. It’s drop-dead simple to see calendars from your friends and family, or calendars you find with the built-in calendar search tool, right next to your own calendar. You can choose to share as much or as little of your own calendar, too.

Third, we focused on helping events come alive. You can turn any event on your calendar into an invitation just by adding the email addresses of your guests. They can see and respond to your invitation, whether or not they use Google Calendar themselves. Event reminders by email and text message to your mobile phone help you remember what’s on your agenda.

Finally, we kept it open. Google Calendar supports the iCal standard so it cooperates with many other calendar applications, enabling you to easily get event data in and out. Also, webmasters can add customized Google Calendar event reminder buttons to their pages, letting visitors quickly add copies of events to their calendars.

We thought it was about time to let you take a look.