Starting today, Google Calendar has a new Español (Latinoamérica) option. Spanish is spoken is much of the world, but the Spanish isn’t the same in every location. Google knows this, and has made a Spanish variant that better suits their Latin American users.

Of course, it isn’t easy to find a variation of Spanish that works for someone living in say, South America, but also feels natural to a Spanish speaker in the United States or Caribbean for example. The Spanish spoken in these regions differs greatly from one country to the next due to geography, separate cultures, customs, and histories. To give all of our Latin American Spanish speakers an option that looks, feels, and sounds right, Google Localization constructed a Spanish variant that combines the most common elements from the different dialects. So whether you speak Spanish or any one of Calendar’s 42 languages, it’s now even easier to keep up with your busy schedule!” says Google.

Google has already offered Gmail in Latin American Spanish since last year, and if you’re new to Calendar but have been using this option inside Gmail, you should be ready to go in Español (Latinoamérica) automatically. Otherwise, simply go to your Calendar settings and click the gear icon and change languages.

The app can be found in the Google Play Store.

The app requires Android 4.0.3 or higher. It has been reviewed rated 10,163 times, with 6,114 5-star ratings. The average rating is 4.2.

People planning events with Google products may like to know that Google added some new Events-related features in its Google+ Android app. For example, users can send messages to specific guests and see who has opened the invitations. Users can also invite people through Google+ or by copying the URL of the event into an email or IM, and guests can RSVP with the number of people they’re bringing. In addition to that, Google has added a new event duplication feature, in case you want to do the same thing multiple times. It will automatically add the details, so you don’t have to set them up every time.

[via Cult of Android]

Well, what about the Google services we actually pay for? Shouldn’t we hold Google to a higher standard for such services?

The answer is a resounding "yes" judging by the number of complaints Google has received regarding Google Calendar’s performance issues over the past week or two.

I expressed my dismay on Twitter last week–Google Cal just simply would not load, instead showing a "try again later" message–and, according to Computerworld, I’m not alone in this experience.

Most of the users trying to access their calendars said they get an error message that reads, "One or more of your selected calendars could not be loaded at this time. You can try to re-select the hidden calendars in a few moments."

"I am really sick of this," one user said today. "When are they going to fix this piece of garbage? I rely on this all the time and now I cannot even sync my Blackberry to my calendars. What’s going on? When are they going to fix this problem?"

Another user who received this error message, "Oops, we couldn’t load details for your calendar, please try again," said, "I’m also angry … Anyone know what the deal is?"

I may only pay $50 a year for Google Apps Premier, but if I were a company of 1,000 employees–paying $50,000 a year–I’d be even more peeved at Google Calendar’s continual performance issues.

Maybe Google shouldn’t be in the paid subscription business. Maybe it should stick to offering free services only. I don’t know about you, but when I pay for a business service–one that I can get from chief rival Microsoft–I kind of expect it to work…flawlessly.

Oh well, maybe someone at Google will hear my cry and send me some aspirin to ease my pain.

Comments

Google Calendar Sync, as it’s named, is supposed to sync calendars at intervals of your choice, and in either direction you please.  On the Official Google Enterprise Blog, Matt Kulick adds, "You can set the default privacy level in Google Calendar to ‘private’ so events synced from Microsoft Outlook calendar are marked private, and only you (or others who you’ve granted permission to view event details) will see them on Google Calendar."

 Google Calendar Help Page

The tool is available right now, and like most of Google’s offerings, is available for free.  We feel obligated you warn you, though, that it may not work too well.

On Google Operating System, 20 comments follow an article on the matter.  They’re not all negative, but several mention problems, and a few more suggest alternatives like Plaxo.  On Google Blogoscoped, there are 14 comments, and some issues are also raised there.

Nothing appears to be catastrophically wrong with Google Calendar Sync, and no calendar events have been reported lost.  Give it a try if you want; just don’t get too set on giving up the old copy/paste routine.

At the Google Code Blog, Fox details the problem of planning a trip and unsuccessfully searching for upcoming conferences. She says that though Google’s Developer Events Calendar has been around for a while, it only listed events Google sponsored or attended.

The new calendar allows others to post upcoming events – conferences, user groups, or parties – for the developer community. It can be viewed in calendar or map views.

A few have already added their events, like the "Jurisdictionary club" in Oklahoma City, the Bossa Conference in Brazil, and JavaOne in San Francisco. 
 

• Published the event on the Web Marketing Seminars page on my Web site. This is a no-brainer and the first, essential step.
• Added the event information (including a link to the online registration) on Facebook, both on my page and as part of the Portland, ME network so that other local people could find it.
• Sent out an email alert to the people who have signed up for my Web Marketing Alerts email newsletter. (You can sign up for this when you sign up for flyte log, our free, monthly email newsletter.)
• Added it as an event on MaineToday.com, the online presence for the Blethen newspapers.
• Added it as a class through Craig’s list.
• Added it at MaineBiz’s event calendar.
• Submitted to Maine Public Broadcasting Network’s event calendar.
• Posted it to my Internet Marketing 101 blog at MaineToday.com (at least twice.)
• Posted it to my flyte blog: web marketing for small business blog (again, at least twice.)
• Posted to Eventful.com, which sends to several other sites including Podbot, Google Calendar, del.icio.us/events, Ping-o-Matic, Technorati, and Upcoming. Several of these sites extend that reach even further through their own network. (Found through Joan Stewart, the Publicity Hound, through Denise Wakeman tip.
• I also learned about EventCrazy.com that way.

I also plan on submitting this event to the print versions of MaineBiz and the Portland Press Herald.

Will I do this for every event? Probably not, but I will try and track which channel is bringing me attendees, by asking everyone at the event.

Your Turn: What tools do you use to promote your events in this 2.0 world? Leave your suggestions in the comments section below.

Comments

According to Andy Beal, Google’s calendar application is talking to Google Gears, which specializes in offline functionality.  “I just saw an interesting pop-up message while opening-up Google Calendar,” Beal wrote.  “It said the application wanted to use Google Gears, did I approve?”  Beal did.

But despite that promising start, it turns out the feature still isn’t functional, and Beal’s pop-up isn’t even appearing for most users.  There’s no doubt that this is real, though – others have echoed Beal’s report, and he took a screenshot as proof – and it looks like whatever Google has up its sleeve is much nearer to the company’s hand than its shoulder.

All of this raises an interesting question: if Google Calendar becomes available offline, what else might follow?  The smart money’s on Gmail – even if taking it offline would be considerably more difficult, this represents a sort of logical next step, and is also something that would please a lot of users.

For the time being, though, we’re just waiting to see if Google Calendar can catch up with its paper counterparts.

A bigger change came to the notifications Google offers for the Calendar service. The ‘Notifications’ option available from the left-side Calendar box menu brings up options for reminders and notifications of events.

Event reminders default to a choice of pop-up or email. That default can be switched for a specified event as desired.

Calendar users can choose to be notified of new, changed, or cancelled invitations, or replies to them, by email, SMS, or both. For SMS, a mobile device has to be authenticated first through Google Calendar before those alerts will be sent to it.

We’re still waiting for Google to integrate this more tightly and natively with its Gmail service. Desktop clients like Outlook that handle easy scheduling of events from arrived messages have a marked advantage over Gmail/Calendar. It’s surprising Google hasn’t addressed this yet.

Google has been extremely active in the last year adding services and developing products for users and webmasters alike, however, in some instances they have missed the mark.

Here are some of the news, new and improved products from Google:

Tag:

“Google Launches Calendar Gallery”

Users are able to search numerous public calendars for events ranging from sports to concerts and can add individual events or complete schedules to their Google Calendar.

People can browse different categories of calendars to view which are the most popular, or they can type a query in the search box to find events of interest.

Users will also be able to receive email or mobile phone alerts about events of interest. Events can also be shared with friends and family.

 Other features of the Google Calendar gallery include:

TV listings for your zip code, with extra details on TLC shows

- Presidential candidates’ 2008 schedules from The New York Times

- Sports schedules provided by Eventful and the NBA

- Theme park events and schedules from Disney

- Updates on travel deals and the ability to search on Orbitz within your calendar

- Concert dates from Atlantic Records, Cordless Recordings, Eventful and JamBase

- Festival schedules from Wcities and Zvents

- Movie and DVD release dates from Netflix

- "Music Horoscopes" and celeb birthdays from artists on Atlantic Records