Calendar and the ‘Widgetization’ of Google

Google yesterday added more calendars to its public calendar directory. This becomes another distribution channel on Google. There’s also a sharing feature built in: as part of the underlying functionality of Google Calendar, people can share calendars with one another.

The bigger picture is that Google now has desktop Gadgets, Gadgets for iGoogle, Mapplets for Google Maps and third party calendar adds for Calendar. These are all Widgets with Google as platform and distribution channel for content. But it’s also Google as Internet dashboard and content management system for individuals. Accordingly, this is part of a larger personalization strategy at Google.

Yahoo has Konfabulator, which offers desktop widgets and has similar mashups capabilities, but it’s not moving quite as aggressively or coherently on a “widget” or applications strategy.