Google has added a number of new social calendars to the options on Google Calender, the most notable for geeks being your friends’ birthdays. Dates are pulled from your GMail contacts that have filled in their birthdays in their Google Profiles.
This could be a fascinating example of using multiple services together in a way that adds value to users’ social lives and incentivizes them to contribute personal data to the system. It would be if anyone but geek early adopters filled out Google Profiles. Give it a try, though, and let us know whose birthdays appear for you. Old friends and family? Or just geeks online?
Go to Other Calendars, then Browse interesting calendars, then click More and you’ll find Contacts’ birthdays and events. You’ll probably be glad you did, if you have any geek friends at all.
Look how buried this is though! The only thing more buried is the Google Profiles themselves that this birthday data is drawn from. We found out about the new birthday feature via Brad Linder.
Why is Google not better surfacing Profiles and the most compelling social data that can be drawn from them? It makes no sense. Sports calendars are now being promoted on the top of your Google Calendar page. Are more people really drawn to sports than to the birthdays of the people they are in regular contact with? Birthdays are important.
We have our concerns about Google’s broad knowledge about many different parts of our lives – but the Google Profiles product has a lot of potential to do awesome things. The company should give the Profiles product the respect it deserves.
In the meantime, it’s quite easy to add a few of your friends’ birthdays to your Google Calendar. It’s low cost in terms of time, high pay-off in social connectivity. We just thought you’d want to know.
