Google aspires to organise your life

Online calendars are nothing new. Yahoo has been offering one since 1998. At first look, Google Calendar looks pretty much like other similar services. It has got multiple views (daily, four-day, weekly, monthly and agenda), the ability to create single and repeating appointments and invite other people. Pretty standard stuff for an online calendar.

But the new service truly stands out when it comes to convenience and ease of use. It takes advantage of slick web programming tricks using Javascript and XML along with RSS. It 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. Users from the United States can get a map from Google Local based on even sketchy information. One reviewer typed in "nova san francisco" and Google plotted a map with the location of Nova, the restaurant he was looking for.

Perhaps the most impressive is the calendar's use of the patented "natural language processing" technology that simplifies how events are entered. It means that users can type "lunch on Sunday 12pm" and the software will automatically add it to the calendar. Gmail users will also find the Google Calendar particularly useful, as it will recognise mentions of events and then automatically offer the user to add the dates and details to the calendar. Users can make several calendars and share them with anyone.

Reflecting the company's roots in search, Google Calendar also includes a search function so users can find other calendars published online such as one produced by their local sports team, for instance and add them with their personal data.

Google Calendar is part of the company's expansion into new areas, pitting the search giant in direct competition against Yahoo. Yahoo currently hosts the most popular online calendar service in the world. In response to Google's announcement, Yahoo said it would release updates to its calendar service in coming months. Last year, Yahoo acquired Upcoming.org, a social event calendar that helps users manage events, share them with friends and family, and post notifications to one's own or to other Web sites.

At the moment, the calendar works best with Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Firefox. In the coming months, Google aims to make it synchronise with Outlook and mobile devices, and offer the service in several languages.