I'm very deeply entrenched in Google's suite of online products; I use Gmail and Google Calendar extensively. I use Dodgeball and Google Voice Local Search and Google Earth and Sketchup, etc. I'm also very excited by the future prospects of Google Apps for location-free and collaborative document management. Generally, I find that as Google continues to add functionality and interoperability to their suite of online offerings, my life becomes easier to track and my personal information easier to maintain.
The one exception so far is my personal financial tracking, for which I use Quicken. A web-based version of such software, offered by Google and taking advantage of existing features in their other products, would be a useful way to manage my life.
Calendar products manage time, ensuring that I don't double book my schedule or miss a planned activity. Personal finance programs manage money, ensuring that I don't spend more than I budgeted or miss payment deadlines.
Spending time often means spending money, and many events in my time schedule directly correlate to events in my financial schedule. I schedule my time using one piece of software, and my money using another one. But why not mash them up?
Here's an illustration of what I mean:
How It Is
I call to schedule a haircut for next Thursday evening. After I've confirmed the appointment time, I create an event in Google Calendar, indicating the time and place. Now, if I want a fully accurate view of my upcoming transactions in Quicken, I'll need to remember when I get home a few hours from now that next Thursday, I'll be spending some money on a haircut. Unless I create a calendar event to remind me to enter the transaction (which would be a fantastically redundant waste of time), then I'll just have to remember, because Quicken is installed on my desktop computer at home.
How It Should Be
I call to schedule a haircut for next Thursday evening. After I've confirmed the appointment time, I create an event in Google Calendar, indicating the time, place, and expected cost. The end. It could look something like this:
