Last night, Google announced that they have branded the Personalized Homepage as iGoogle. This shorthand has been used around the Googleplex for a while now. It’s definitely much easier to refer to it as iGoogle versus Google Personalized Homepage.
A little bit of history on the personalized homepage (source):
When the idea originally came up to have a personalized homepage, the original mockup showed the iGoogle logo back in 2004. The URL was and always has been google.com/ig which lead people to believe it was called Google IG. It never really had a name until yesterday when they officially branded the personalized homepage feature as iGoogle.
While they were at it, they made a few changes to the feature as well. For starters, the dramatic themes which have turned out to be popular in the US are now available around the world. They’ve also added 22 new locations to the list.
Gadget development is something that anybody can do now. All you have to do is click on “Add Stuff” and then click on “Make your own gadget – no programming required.” From there you can create and share the Google gadgets that you created, and all it takes is filling out a form. You can select from:
Framed photo: share a photo or series of photos via a gadget.- GoogleGram: send a message, flowers, etc.,
- Daily Me:think Twitter– what’s your status? (pictured to the right)
- Free Form: Write whatever you want!
- YouTube Channel: Have a favorite channel your friends should see?
- Personal list: Favorite movies, grocery list, etc.,
- Countdown: How many days until your birthday?
Getting to iGoogle is the same as it’s always been, or you can go to iGoogle.com
Google Responds to Viacom
In related Google news, Google has finally responded to the lawsuit that Viacom slapped them with. If you’ll recall, back in March, Viacom filed a $1 billion dollar lawsuit against YouTube for copyright infringement.
Yesterday Google filed their response and responded just as everybody thought they would. They said they go above and beyond what is required of them with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The DMCA gives hosts protection from copyright lawsuits if they remove the material when requested.
The response has been made, now what? We’ll just have to wait and see.
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Chris (GooSync)
I was wondering what the “i” in front of Google was for when I saw it just show up and was not clickable and had no explanation. Thanks for the info (as always)!
No problem!
I think this is just going to confuse all of the current users…I have been asked several times what “iGoogle” is. People seem to be thinking that it is a completely different service.
They should have definitely made some sort of announcement on everyone’s homepages.
But then what fun would that have been?
You’re right, but I think the real fun comes when you lose all of your personalized homepage settings…which I have heard has started happening again.