com125 assignment 8: web application

The web application that I chose to review is Google Calendar. For those of you who are unaware, Google Calendar is a free time management web application offered by Google that allows people, even those without a Gmail account, to synchronize their contacts with a web-based calendar.


Similar to iCal, which I had previously used on my Mac, it is a personal date book to house all of your upcoming plans and events. You can drag and drop events from one date to another without ever having to reload the page. What makes this so unique is that all of your events are stored online so you can view them from any location that has Internet access. With your permission, you can make your calendar public and share it with friends and family so they can see your daily schedule and future events that you are planning to attend. You can also make multiple calendars for different groups of people to have access to. For example, if you are involved in a sports team or club you can create a distinct calendar for them to view with events that strictly pertains to the interests of that group.

The new GVENT feature of Google Calendar allows users to create new events and check calendar information through their mobile phone. Using SMS (short messaging service) codes like “next” and “day” can be sent to get a notification containing your next/all of your scheduled event(s) for the present day or send any date to get a notification containing all of your events for that day. I have never used this feature on Google Calendar but it seems as though it can be very effective time management strategy when you do not have access to the Internet. Google is also working on incorporating this application into their email service Gmail. When you receive an e-mail that contains trigger words such as "meeting" or specific dates/times an "add to calendar" button is automatically displayed alongside it so that you can add the event to your personal calendar.

In terms of the site’s design, simplicity is the key. I have found that it is very easy to navigate through and you can color code your events according to a particular category such as work or school. You can also customize the view of your calendar by clicking a tab to display the events for a single day, week, month, or the next four days. When you are done completing your schedule for a specific date you even have to option to print it out in case you will not have access to the Internet on that date.

I think that Google Calendar is both useful and beneficial because it is incorporating Google applications into the world of social networking applications. It can be seen as an aspect of social networking since you are allowing yourself to be connected to other people over the Internet. Most of the time people don’t even realize that they are allowing this kind of invasion of their privacy. By making all of your personal plans available for Google to see, it makes their job of collecting information about you that much easier.