Google Calendar Gadgets

You've
seen them on iGoogle, in IBM WebSphere Portal, and now you can find
them in your favorite online calendar -- that's right, now we're
supporting Gadgets in Google Calendar! If you're a Scorpio like me, you
can add this gadget that lets you check your horoscope from your calendar (don't worry, all the signs of the zodiac are supported). And if astrology isn't your thing, how about games? This Sudoku gadget was created by Alex Komoroske, one of our interns on the Docs & Spreadsheets team. If you add the gadget, you'll see that the daily puzzles get harder throughout the week.

Finally, if you like to keep up on celebrity birthdays, the birthday reminder will show you who you are idolizing that day:



But you don't have to be a Googler to create a Calendar Gadget -- we have put together new documentation
to help you get your favorite Gadgets into Calendar. If you are itching
to write some code, then you can use GData or ICAL to add some fancy
Calendar Gadget events to your calendar. But if you're out of Red Bull
and don't have the time for a late-night hacking session, then you may
want to try our new "of-the-day" Calendar Gadget wizard,
which makes it easy to take an existing Google Gadget and have it show
up once a day, every day, just like the Horoscope and Sudoku Gadgets do.

Let us know how your experiences with Calendar Gadgets are going in the Google Calendar GData API developer forum.

Tags: google

Digg that ReDesign

A little public relations work for Digg founder Kevin Rose today. No
doubt hearing the calls for changes to the comments section and the
addition of images to the social news site (spurred on again by the
recent launch of RedditMedia, an unofficial “Reddit for images”), Rose has promised that those features are forthcoming.

In fact, a future revamp will combine all the media sections under
an “All” tab, with users still able to navigate to the individual
sections. That likely means more attention paid to areas like Videos.

The new stuff will arrive in October, Rose assures users, which is
likely soon enough: despite there being no shortage of rivals, nobody
has yet shaken Digg’s
network effects. The only question I have about Digg is: what next?
Surely the site must eventually look towards acquisition, but the user
base is so opinionated that no acquirer would be good enough for them.

Google and the NYMTA

Google will soon
be working with the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority and
new Jersey Transit to create an online guide for people that use the
public transportation systems.

With the combined transits carrying over 9 million people a day,
this project will be a large one for Google. Offering an online guide
with maps, schedules and trip planners, Google will be offering users a
centralized, online location for pretty much all the information needed
regarding the transit systems. The metropolitan area covers parts of
Connecticut, Westchester County and Long Island as well.

Incorporating this type of system means more local ad opportunities
for Google, and a nice ad revenue split for the transit authorities.
The amount of money US companies spend on ads alongside local searches
and maps is expected to nearly triple to $2.61 billion in the next four
years, and the efforts to provide the best local search options are
being pushed by several companies other than Google, including Grayboxx.
Nevertheless, this particular project will be the largest of its kind
for Google, but it has already created online transit guides for
several cities, including Dallas and San Diego.