Gmail adds new Calendar Invitation Feature – Share your Free/Busy info

Google Apps mail and Gmail (Essentially the same thing) has a very cool new feature for inviting friends and clients to meetings and events.When you compose an email message, there’s now an “Insert: Invitation” link right under the subject line. Now what actually makes this very cool is that if the recipient has shared their calendar, either public or to you directly then you will be able to see their Free/Busy schedule from the popup Invitation box… Right from within your email.

The first thing the recipient needs to do is share their calendar with you or make their calendar public. As far as I can see making a calendar public (Free/Busy details only) has no negative impacts as it is not searchable by Google.

Referenced from: http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?answer=139970

Now when you click “Insert Invitation”

A small window appears that displays your availability as well as that of the person or people you’re emailing. You can check both calendars and pick a time that would probably suit both of you. When you’ve decided on the most appropriate time and date for the event, click the “Insert Invitation” button and a preview of the invitation will appear in your email message:

When you send the email, the event gets added to your calendar as well as to your friends’ calendar, pretty much just a standard Outlook Meeting request.

What a fantastic way to reduce those email threads around creating meeting times.