Google has offered a personalized home page for years, but today it was relaunched with new features and the curious name “iGoogle.” Curious because the letter “i” preceding a name is Apple’s territory – Google is tweaking Apple pretty deliberately. (Reportedly Google has reassured Apple that it doesn’t intend to offer any more “i” services.)
The features for personalizing the page are slick – check boxes to turn various news feeds and features on and off, drag and drop arrangement of the boxes onscreen, and a choice of “gadgets” – everything from weather boxes to daily photos of bunnies. It’s possible to create a gadget with some personal photos in it and share it with other iGoogle users, no programming required. Here’s an article about the new iGoogle page and here’s a short description on the “official Google blog.”
Of course it makes no sense to use that as your actual home page, right? Far better to use the official bruceb favorites page – there’s a link to iGoogle right there at the top, under Portals. You wouldn’t leave me, would you?
