Church of Google
With the advent of Google Calendar, I now have zero reason to maintain ties to Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, Eudora, or any other mail/calendar/contacts organizational software. Drag and drop GUI, a horde of public calendars already containing any event I might care about, easy one-click filters to show or hide as much as I choose, and 24/7 access from any computer, be it PC or Mac, with a web browser and internet connection. And for anybody who says “what if you lose your internet connection?”, I’ll answer “good thing they make it so easy to print out.”
Google has left the world of corporate domination and moved into the realm of religion. They have the ability to gain intimate knowledge of millions of people’s lives (gmail, calendar, desktop search), filter what information those same people access (google, scholar), and their followers respect and love them. Users might not physically go door to door to spread the word of Google, but they certainly do blog, IM, and gmail about how much happier they are since letting Google into their lives.