Hello! It’s been a while since my last entry as I’ve been vacation in Singapore and Australia, attending/participating in a relative’s wedding and then, on my return, I promptly attended the Podcast Academy @ Boston University (which I will blog about shortly). To top it all off, I came down with something and I’m still recovering from it. So, to say the least, things have been a bit overwhelming of late.

Anyway, lots of exciting things have happened over the last few weeks while I was away and the one that I think scores the highest on my hype-count was the official launch of Google Calendar on April 13^th, followed quickly by the release of the Google Caledar API about 1 week later.

I first heard about the then-codenamed “CL2” application on Episode 1 of TalkCrunch (the podcast for TechCrunch) in an interesting discussion of how Google Calendar (gCal) compares with similar products like Zvents and 30boxes. In fact, I believe there were rumors that Yahoo acquired Upcoming.org in OCT’2005 because they were anticipating the launch of gCal at the Web 2.0 conference last year. Now, that podcast was released on March 15^th and just as I was beginning to wonder if there was any truth to it, Google launches the app as soon as I leave the country for vaca!

Anyway, Google says that the Calendar is “…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.” Here are some of the highlights of the app:

- Quickly and easily add events
- Integration with Gmail (e.g. one click adding of events from email messages)
- Share-able calendars (with public or specified users)
- Search and compare tool (e.g. for comparing two different calendars)
- Built-in invitations via email (think “eVite”)
- Event reminders via email or text messaging (cool!)
- Support for Outlook and iCal, so you can synchronize your calendars

I think this will be a great product for people who travel a lot. I like the idea of being able to check your work calendar and compare it with your personal calendar while on the road, especially since it can be a real pain (and real s-l-o-w) to have to VPN-in just to look at your Outlook calendar.

Otherwise, you can simply keep calendars for every segment of your life and have them accessible and searchable everywhere you go! In fact, Google OS and Google Blogoscoped have some interesting public calendars that you can add to your own account for reference and here’s an innovative idea for using gCal in a medical practice. I’ve personally signed up for an account and will experiment with it over the coming weeks—it seems pretty nifty so far.

- A great round-up by 23rd World as well as Gmail integration info
- Review by Michael Arrington from TechCrunch
- CNET review by Elinor Mills
- Another good overview by Solution Watch, with lots of images
- A good discussion on gCal application and comparison with other products
- Great tips from Stopdesign for using gCal
- Nice source of gCal updates from Lifehacker

UPDATE: 5/14/2006
- Check out this great review/use-case by Giles Turnbull on the Vitamin site

For those of you interested in Enterprise Blogging (”blogging for business“), Rod Boothby, of the Innovation Creators blog and fellow memeber of the Otter Group advisory board, will be presenting a talk on this issue at the Glibane Conference in San Francisco.

The conference, which mainly focuses on (enterprise) content management technologies, runs from April 24-26, 2006 and here are some of the highlights that are planned:

• Two-day Conference on Enterprise Digital Rights Management, chaired by DRMWatch Editor Bill Rosenblatt .
• Enterprise Search.
• Enterprise Blogs & Wikis.
• Automated Publishing for marketing managers, chaired by Gene Gable, President, Gene Gable Industries
• Vetted Case Studies from the Content Technology Works Initiative.
• Four In-depth tutorials taught by the experts who even other experts depend on.
• Technology Showcase

OK, I'm not sure how seriously to take this article as it was publshed on April 1st, but apparently, Yahoo is now trying to become the Costco of Web 2.0.

It seems that Yahoo is making an effort to be “synonymous with Web 2.0.” Perhaps this is a bid to challenge Google's efforts to organize the world's information?

BTW, that “all of it” link to Sacred Cowdung (what a name!?!) is great!

Before we even start talking about ETech and Trends (ET&T), I thought it might be worth thinking a bit about the “barriers to entry,” particularly for those of us who work in organizations that don’t exactly “embrace” the latest and greatest.

- Tim O'Reilly's recent talk at “Startup School”
- Tim O'Reilly's guide to “What is Web 2.0“

- Dion
Hinchcliffe’s Five
Techniques for Using Web 2.0 to Reinvent the Customer Relationship

- “Preparing for Intranet 2.0: how to integrate new communication technology into your intranet” by Kathleen Gilroy and Bill Ives

I’ll keep updating these, so please leave me links to good resources in the comments. Thanks!