Google has finally released their Google Calendar application. After signing in and quickly navigating through the program, it is obvious that it is a beta version. Some of the bugs are so significant, that I even wonder why it was released - the add an item feature is fairly weak (you can’t save some updates!), and thereÂ? doesn’t seem to be aÂ? way to make a recurring event (like a weekly practice). Regardless, there are two main points that I’d like to make about the release.

Yesterday, I posted about online maps. I commented on the importance of the product as something that the major online companies (Yahoo!, Google, and MSN specifically) could build on. It makes the application itself less significant, putting the emphasis instead on what can be built on top of it. The example I gave was Google Real Estate. GoogleÂ? has integrated Google Calendars with other Google apps in two major ways. When you are adding an event, you can add a “Where” the event is. A link to Google Maps will let you view a mapÂ? to the location. Not a bad added feature. Also, if you have a Gmail account, you can set the calendar to search your emails for potential eventsÂ? and automatically add them into your calendar. Both features add value for the user and make the product more powerful overall, but it also show the importance of having a solid application as a platform to build on.

This brings me to my next point. The Google Calendar has been opened up just like Google Maps so that it can be built on independently. By making the product (pseudo)Â? open-sourced, Google can harness the power of anyone and everyoneÂ? ambitious enough and creative enough to use the application. It seems only logical that anything grand enough to get Google’s attention would be scooped up. This is also a big part of the Web 2.0 trend. I recently wrote about “The Next Net 25” and mentioned a website Trulia. I can’t wait to see what kind of applications will be designed that utilizeÂ? theÂ? GoogleÂ? Calendar.

Check out SiliconBeat for more about Google Calendars.

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