Google removed the public calendar directory

Was I the only one that used the Google public calendar directory? According to Google's decision to end the public calendar directory , I was one of few. I found this out while trying to find the KC Royals 2009 schedule.

I always enjoyed that someone else cared enough to put together Google calendars of my favorite sports teams that I could just add to my calendar with a few clicks. The directory made these easy to find. Now, I assume people are still out there putting these schedules together, I just have no easy way to find them anymore.

I initially thought that removing the directory would just mean I would have to go to a traditional Google search to find what I wanted. A search for kansas city royals public google calendar turns up nothing, but that's not too weird. It is the Royals and there are not a lot of us Royals fans out there right now. So I tried a New York Yankees search since there are way to many Yankee's fans out there. But nothing I see with a quick scan.

When you create a public calendar, gCal tells you that it will be available in Google search. Obviously it gets lumped in with too many other things to make it very easy to find quickly. No where near as easy as having a directory. Does anyone know any search keywords to use to narrow it down to calendars only?

There are other options. I could type in the schedule myself (not going to happen) or it looks like with mysprotscal.com you can download and import a calendar. But all these options require a lot more work that simply having the calendars in a searchable directory.

It's a shame that more people/organizations did not take advantage of Google's easy calendar integration and directory. I always wanted things like my favorite comedy club to keep a google calendar of performances. Or some live music bars I like to have a performance calendar in google. That way if we wanted to plan a night out, we just tick on those calendars to overlay them on our calendar and see when a good night is and what is going on where that night.

If my kid's school would do a Google calendar it would make my life so much easier. Instead they use something called WebCal creator which does me no good. You might as well fax me a paper copy of it. If my kid's teacher would set up another calendar with just class room specific stuff, that would be incredible. Relying on notes hidden in backpacks and what my kid says is going on is not proving to be all that informative.

For Royals fans out that looking for the schedule, here is the one I downloaded and imported from mysportscal.com. Go to the "Other Calendars" section in your gCal, to the left of your calendar, and paste in this email address where it says "add a friend's calendar": wallacewilson.net_fnecfkr9i32p6or0vi7bbp2a78@group.calendar.google.com . That will add it to your google calendar. It was simple enough to download, create a new calendar, and import. But it was too many steps for some, and not as easy to find.