Updates for Google, Microsoft, Etsy

By Vivek | November 15th, 2006 at 03:32 pm ET         

Google Local Event Search: Google Calendar team launched a new feature that enables users to search local events added by others and additional listing aggregated from it’s partners. You can quickly search for events by event name or category, city, or date. Results show up in the Google calendar and you can switch between various views including a list view. I am not sure for what radius Google searches for events when you search by city. Other players in this area include Zvents, and Eventful, both of which had closed new funding rounds recently.

Microsoft Office Live goes live: Today Office Live officially went live. Office Live is aimed at business users and provides various applications for managing your data related to Project, Sales, Employees, and Customers. Office Live subscription plans include Basics(Free, still need to give your credit card number though), Essentials($19.95/month), and Premium($39.95/month). Each of the plans vary in the diskspace offered, number of users that you can add, applications that will be available to you, and number of other options. However most of the apps are too web1.0′ish to even think of using them. I will stick to my ad-hoc collaboration toolset(Gmail+Writely+EditGrid+GCal) in the meantime.

Etsy V2 launches: Previously I had written about the imminent release of Etsy’s new version. Couple of days back Etsy went live with the new release. With the new feature set, Etsy team is definitely poised for the long run. You can the new site and my previous post for more details about the changes.