Gary Price at SEW reports that the domain
GCalendar.com is registered in the name of a domain holding company often used to shield Google's ownership of the
name. Naturally, this leads to speculation that Google is creating an online calendar product to compete with Yahoo!
Calendar. I use the Yahoo! product every day, but I'd welcome a more Ajaxy interface that doesn't require so many
clicks to find the correct day/time and set up reminders.
About the domain shielding— Google could relieve itself of such shenanigans if it would simply establish a uniform
addressing system for its products. Here, it should take a lesson from Yahoo!, which consistently uses the
service.yahoo.com formula (with occasional nesting as in: myweb2.search.yahoo.com). Even Yahoo! Mail doesn't operate in
its own domain; it uses mail.yahoo.com. Google's addressing is all over the freakin' map, and it can be infuriating. In
an interview discussion yesterday I was asked about the best Google services for marketers, and I wanted to mention
Google Suggest. Then I remembered that I had no idea
where the damn thing is located, so I avoided mentioning it. (The unbelievably cryptic address is
http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en.)
Google Calendar?
Reader Comments
(Page 1)2. Just a quick clarification, not trying to "flame" or anything, but they're addresses are pretty intuitive..
For most lab products they can follow this system - http://labs.google.com/suggest/
Whereas for mail, you can use mail.google.com, blogger can be found at blog.google.com and the blog search can be found at blogsearch.google.com.
I think the extra addresses are so it's easier for people to go directly to their mail... or Gcalendar or Gbrowser or whatever happens to come in the future..
Posted at 6:06AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Norm McCray
3. Just FYI Google Maps is found at maps.google.com, Google Mail is also mail.google.com, etc., for many of their services.
And actually I think I prefer the name "GMail" to "Google Mail." But not "YMail" to Yahoo Mail ;) Maybe its just branding.
I hope Google does come out with a calendar, it would be nice. What I'd like though is if they have a feature like Yahoo's Intellisync feature to sync your Outlook, etc, with your Yahoo calendar. And some sharability too, so my wife and I can share calendars....
Posted at 6:06AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Mike Robinson
4. Why aren't you talking about the new Yahoo! Mail Beta on this blog? Walt Mossberg is right -- the new Y! Mail blows Gmail away. imho, it gives Yahoo! years not months of time to market advantage. It also exposes the emerging reality that, outside of search, Google's products generally aren't best of breed or even close ...
Posted at 6:06AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Jim
5. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Google acquired the unique talent at 37signals and their product set of Basecamp, Backpack, and Tada List, and opened the whole thing up as part of a GCalendar, or similar Yahoo Mail/Notes portal.
Posted at 6:06AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Stuart Moffatt
6. "Why aren't you talking about the new Yahoo! Mail Beta on this blog?"
Pardon me, but I was testing the Mail beta within seconds of its launch, and posted what might have been the first published review:
http://yahoo.weblogsinc.com/entry/1234000380058717/
7. Stuart Moffatt - then Google would have to introduce a single login form for 37 Signals product, which might ask a few more questions than usual to avoid abuse and bot signups, and we all know how 37 signals guys feel about longer registration forms:-)
Posted at 6:06AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Gruntled Postal Worker
8. You might also like to note that http://calendar.google.com redirects to www.google.com, a behaviour that was exhibited by talk.google.com just before it went live.
fingers crossed.
Posted at 6:06AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Harry C
9. With regards to your reference to Google suggest you might want to read the post I made the other day regarding the suggest feature in the Firefox toolbar and the very strange results that Google returns within the suggested terms:
http://sem.weblogsinc.com/entry/1234000693060187/
Posted at 6:06AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Carl Spencer
14. well.. Google's services aren't that hard to find, as u just hit "More" from Google's homepage, and that's all !
but anyway... these days i feel that yahoo is better than google, somehow.. i mean, it's not all about speed and simplicity. and also not about how big are the indexes, and i think yahoo is getting more precise than it used to be... even than google !
i hate to say that, but most of google's services are becoming to be unuseable... and some people have no idea about some of google's services...
i hope there'll be a Gmail integration with that calnedar (if it's true) !
15. Just a quick clarification, not trying to "flame" or anything, but they're addresses are pretty intuitive..
For most lab products they can follow this system - http://labs.google.com/suggest/
Whereas for mail, you can use mail.google.com, blogger can be found at blog.google.com and the blog search can be found at blogsearch.google.com.
I think the extra addresses are so it's easier for people to go directly to their mail... or Gcalendar or Gbrowser or whatever happens to come in the future..
Posted at 6:06AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Norm McCray
16. Just FYI Google Maps is found at maps.google.com, Google Mail is also mail.google.com, etc., for many of their services.
And actually I think I prefer the name "GMail" to "Google Mail." But not "YMail" to Yahoo Mail ;) Maybe its just branding.
I hope Google does come out with a calendar, it would be nice. What I'd like though is if they have a feature like Yahoo's Intellisync feature to sync your Outlook, etc, with your Yahoo calendar. And some sharability too, so my wife and I can share calendars....
Posted at 6:06AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Mike Robinson
17. Why aren't you talking about the new Yahoo! Mail Beta on this blog? Walt Mossberg is right -- the new Y! Mail blows Gmail away. imho, it gives Yahoo! years not months of time to market advantage. It also exposes the emerging reality that, outside of search, Google's products generally aren't best of breed or even close ...
Posted at 6:06AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Jim
18. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Google acquired the unique talent at 37signals and their product set of Basecamp, Backpack, and Tada List, and opened the whole thing up as part of a GCalendar, or similar Yahoo Mail/Notes portal.
Posted at 6:06AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Stuart Moffatt
19. "Why aren't you talking about the new Yahoo! Mail Beta on this blog?"
Pardon me, but I was testing the Mail beta within seconds of its launch, and posted what might have been the first published review:
http://yahoo.weblogsinc.com/entry/1234000380058717/
20. Stuart Moffatt - then Google would have to introduce a single login form for 37 Signals product, which might ask a few more questions than usual to avoid abuse and bot signups, and we all know how 37 signals guys feel about longer registration forms:-)
Posted at 6:06AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Gruntled Postal Worker
1. well.. Google's services aren't that hard to find, as u just hit "More" from Google's homepage, and that's all !
but anyway... these days i feel that yahoo is better than google, somehow.. i mean, it's not all about speed and simplicity. and also not about how big are the indexes, and i think yahoo is getting more precise than it used to be... even than google !
i hate to say that, but most of google's services are becoming to be unuseable... and some people have no idea about some of google's services...
i hope there'll be a Gmail integration with that calnedar (if it's true) !
Posted at 6:06AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Kareem