"Once the gadget is created, you can invite other people to view & use the gadget, and make it publicly available for other people to view & use it." So whatever you choose to add to a gadget will be visible to the people you invited.
The wizards let you enter the settings for seven new gadget templates:
1. Photo album - add up to 7 photos that can be rotated.
2. GoogleGram - enter seven greeting messages.
3. Daily Me - type what you are doing.
4. Countdown - count the days until a special event.
5. Simple list - you can use it as a ToDo list, shopping list.
6. YouTube videos - up to 10 videos.
7. Freeform gadget - add an image and some text.
The gadgets are a way of staying in touch with your friends: if one of your Gmail contacts creates gadgets you'll be able to see them in a new section of iGoogle called "My Community".
I'm glad they're focusing on iGoogle since it's becoming my "launch" page into the internet.
ReplyDeleteI hope they make it so that individual modules (gadgets) update themselves without having the whole page refresh.
That's my most requested "feature."
Erg. Wrong direction for them to go, IMO. But *shrug*...
ReplyDeleteApparently none of the free spirits hanging around outside the box at Google were asked about the name. Meanwhile, inside the box, the committee that thought Product Search was sexier than Froogle, voted unanimously to add an italic i to the front of their corporate moniker, thereby giving the user a feeling of significance.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of personalization... did you notice that the word "personalized" was added when listing results at the bottom of the page of the new google SERPs?
ReplyDeletelink to what I mean --> http://preview.tinyurl.com/2nll63
Regarding the "new" name, about which many people said it has an Apple touch: it was the initial name of the personalized homepage when it launched in 2005 and the reason behind the URL google.com/ig.
ReplyDelete<< The team behind the product had originally planned to call it "iGoogle" only to be vetoed at the last minute by Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, said Marissa Mayer, the company's vice president of search products and user experience.
The project's secret name has always been evident in the "ig" shorthand that appeared within the web address of the personal pages, although no one knew the meaning of those two letters until now.
The immense popularity of Google's personal page evidently helped persuade Brin and Page that it was time to give the product a popular name. >> (smh.com.au)
It's up and quite nice.
ReplyDeleteI've always thought of it as IGoogle (hence the /ig)
ReplyDeleteGreat to see this!
Now all i want to see is the change from page refreshes to module refreshes, that would make it perfect!
Being in college just now, i can't access my pictures, so for now, i've changed sex as well as race. (that girls pretty cute actually)
Glad they've managed to (as far as i know) fix the homepage errors the other day there.
Definitely a step in the right direction.
ReplyDeleteAs soon as a theme personaliser is implemented, I can see iGoogle dominating pageflakes & netvibes. :)
Why "iGoogle?" Apple already made the "i" prefix incredibly cliché. Can't it just stay "Google?" What's wrong with that? "iGoogle" just feels like Google's hopping on some outdated bandwagon. I love the personal homepage but "iGoogle" is simply uncreative.
ReplyDeleteI think this is perfect, but it will be nice if Google allow the users to embed this in their blogs and sites.
ReplyDeleteMy input would be to make the individual components fail quickly and gracefully.
ReplyDeleteQuit irritating in a marginal bandwidth situation to have the page not load over some unimportant gadget not functioning.
Tangent: it would also be great to make gmail come up in basic HTML mode from the login page, when you know the pipe is narrow.
Thanks, Google.
This reminds me of a facebook profile page. You can share your favorite photos/videos, put up your status, and add friends to your community so you can look at each other's pages. Google is sort of jumping into the social networking realm with this one...
ReplyDeleteC'mon Google, don't fall into this antiquated "stick an 'i' in front of everything to make it hip" trend. Google Home was much better. Please lose the 'i'!
ReplyDeleteIsnt that a little bit of a rip off from apple?
ReplyDeleteCOPYRIGHT GOOGLE!
Its funny though, they probably think branding it like that will make it more popular... Geez theres a little bit more to it than that guys
This is pretty neat. As much as I prefer the standard Google search page as my homepage, this may entice me to switch...
ReplyDeleteWhat would be cool is a widget for MacOSX Dashboard that does something similar. Just my 2 cents.
I love the idea (and I love Google in general), but I don't care for the name or the logo at all. iGoogle doesn't have a pleasant sound to it like iPod does. It just doesn't work. The green 'i' in front looks really, really bad too.
ReplyDeleteI don't see it as an Apple 'i' cop out. "iGoogle" becomes a statement, a complete sentence. I Google.
ReplyDeleteThe name of the service is irrelevant. I don't give a rats what it is called as long as it does what it says. And last I checked Apple hadn't copyrighted "i".
ReplyDeletewww.netvibes.com
ReplyDeleteUmm...ghey.
ReplyDeleteiGoogle, just doesn't sound or look right..
ReplyDeletemight be good but the name sucks!
Way to copy Apple. How original :rolleyes:
ReplyDeleteQick to capitalise on this ive set up a forum www.igooglegadgetmakers.com and if you're interested in Gadgets and you want somewhere to meet like minded people then heres your platform.
ReplyDeletespread the word :)
Is this an April Fool's joke? I hope so.
ReplyDeleteThere's a difference between Apple's i and Google's i. Apple (and not only Apple) used i to show that a product is Internet-enabled, but the i has diluted over time (iMac, iBook, iLife, iTunes, iPod, iPhone).
ReplyDeleteThe i from Google is simply the pronoun I that shows this is your customized Google. It's similar to My Yahoo, My Netscape etc.
What about all the stuff I had on my old personalized homepage? It's all disappeared! :-(
ReplyDeleteI had a personalized google page when that feature first came out, but it took 1 or 2 seconds longer to load than the default unadorned google search page. That's 1 or 2 seconds too long.
ReplyDeleteIt would be nice if I could type my searching string and hit Enter while the rest of the page was still loading. As soon as I hit Enter it should take me to the search results without bothering to load the rest of the page.
Ohhh yea, this was Great..... It replaced my old personalized homepage and I lost all my link, not to mention my loaded stock ticker... grrr
ReplyDeleteNot again. I though they fixed last week's bugs.
ReplyDeleteI have had to rebuild my page twice now. I don't want to go looking for stuff all the time. I hope this stabilizes soon.
ReplyDeleteIve been using the personalized homepage for a while, and like the updated look, but as with others, the name doesnt work for me. It seems like google is just jumping on the bandwagon, it doesnt roll of the toungue easy either. Im sure some of the best marketing people in the world could come up with something other than "stick a lowercase i in front of it because thats what everyone else does now." google innovates, it doesnt follow the pack.
ReplyDeletegosh.
ReplyDeleteplease stop the 'i'-hype.
Apparently, the product's codename was Mockingbird and other options for the name were Fusion and Yougle. "Google Personalized Homepage" was too long and boring, compared to Netvibes, Pageflakes, MyMinis, Protopage, My Yahoo etc.
ReplyDeleteMy two tab personalized google is GONE!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI've spent a year crafting a Google ig page that had news feeds and gmail on one tab, and feeds of my favorite blogs on the other.
This morning it's GONE. My theme forgotten, my second tab disappeared, the first tab a shadow of its former self.
iGoogle ruined my day!
My personalized page was also reset. I hope this is just a temporary problem because I spent a lot of time getting it setup just right – I was using every tab, and each was full of blogs and other "stuff".
ReplyDeleteI think they should leave it as Personalised Homepage, you immediately know what it does from the name.
ReplyDeleteiGoogle will go out of fashion. Remember when everybody was obsessed with lowercase e? eLearning, eBanking etc... That's just so 1990s now.
I too question the name. Apple seems to have the "iProductname" brand pretty well solidified. On the other hand, Google could have leveraged YouTube and called it YouGoogle.
ReplyDeleteThe 'igoogle' reset bug is popping up everywhere it seems ... I griped about on my pages as well...
ReplyDeletemy homepage reset to widgets i had on there a year ago. when i try to re-add the things i had on there yesterday, it stays until i refresh the page and disappears. what gives?
ReplyDeleteThe thread at Google Groups has more than 500 messages (34 posted today).
ReplyDeleteI'm not usually a demeaning person, but:
ReplyDelete1. Photo album - useless
2. GoogleGram - Seriously? If I ever get caught with a kitty cat holding a balloon on my comptuer greting me every day, someone shoot me. Dumb!
3. Daily Me - Dumb
4. Countdown - Slightly useful
5. Simple list - Slightly usefull
6. YouTube videos - meh. ok
7. Freeform gadget - oooh... a whole image and some text! Forefront of technology here!
Come on Google. You're smarter than this.
And seriously? iGoogle? Ya, Apple already beat that dead horse. Since when are Google Mac fanboys?
My personalized pages are GONE. I hope I can remember what I personalized over a LONG time....
ReplyDeleteEnglish orthography demands that the I pronoun is always rendered as a capital letter. That explanation fails.
ReplyDeleteThe main search engine should be renamed "Google!". It totally wouldn't be a ripoff of Yahoo! -- Yahoo! didn't invent the exclamation point.
ReplyDeleteIt would only indicate excitement about the search engine and would have nothing to do with Yahoo! at all.
Personally I have decided to switch to netvibes today, after I lost all of my Google Homepage settings. All I did was try to add another widget to my page and poof, everything be gone. So much time and effort spent into personalizing my page the way I liked it, suddenly gone, in a flash. Sorry Google, bad idea. Test, test, test, before implementation.
ReplyDeleteThis re-branding of the Google Personalized Homepage is a bad idea. They get rid of the good name Froogle for their product search because they want to consolidate their brand and now they dilute their brand with this iGoogle name.
ReplyDeleteIf the personalized homepage needed a new name they should have used Google Launch or something like that.
My personalizations and data (notepad gadget) are back. Hopefully everyone else's is too.
ReplyDeleteQuote: "And seriously? iGoogle? Ya, Apple already beat that dead horse. Since when are Google Mac fanboys?"
ReplyDeleteMaybe since Google CEO Eric Schmidt joined Apple's board of directors.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tf5_bassist/229065134/
Google sounds better than personalised homepage. Plus there's a rumour going around that google might be releasing their own mp3 player, like how they're also releasing their own operating system, mobile phone and WMD. Gus
ReplyDeletePretty cool that Google based the start page on widgets. Yahoo is still behind on that.
ReplyDelete--
We Will Create Your Very Own Domain Name - http://PowerNamer.com
Can we use these Gadgets on on blogs like the ones used here. http://www.bestofindya.com/dash/index.php?runDash=true
ReplyDeleteIf Google could hook up with a DIY Webware provider like Coghead (www.coghead.com), THEN iGoogle would really be useful. As it stands, the gadgets are not very useful.
ReplyDeleteI don't like the "i" aspect. I'd rather just have my personalized google homepage say google.
ReplyDeletemy page fixed itself everything is back the way it was
ReplyDeleteThe name in itself works. What annoys me beyond all reason is that you STILL can't delete tabs.
ReplyDeleteThe new name is awful. Google and Froogle were so good. Original.
ReplyDeletepostlogic, You can delete tabs. You have to select the tab and then click the tab name again to have an X appear.
ReplyDeleteI love the improvements and it's great to see the themes come to the localised versions of Google so soon, but I really hate seeing that 'i' next to the Google logo - it's really spoiled it! It's their corporate identity, and gone and slapped an Apple i next to it. Pleeeeaaase take it away!
ReplyDeleteThe Gadget Makers of the YouTube video viewer do know that it doesn't work properly right. If you click on prev-next they don't work.
ReplyDeleteAnd quickly, when I'm in Mail/Calendar etc... I love the quick link bar at the top left of the screen to all my google apps.
When I click on the Google link why doesn't it take me to my iGoogle content page, instead it takes me to 'classic' google.
and secondally how do I get this quick link toolbar onto my iGoogle page for quick access to all the apps,
Thanks it's a great service!
@Mike
ReplyDeleteHey, iGoogle doesn't currently provide a quick links box on the upper left of the page.
HOWEVER, there is an excellent iGoogle gadget that places that quick links box there for you. It is a perfect implementation, I think, and even customizable.
LINK: google.com/ig/directory?hl=en&url=http://www.abc.edu/xml/corner_bookmark.xml
I think this is perfect & Nice.It's Very useful.
ReplyDeleteFWIW, my personalized homepage (err, iGoogle) content did not disappear with the branding change. So I'm thinking it must be some unrelated bug.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a big fan of 'iGoogle', I think an earlier commenter's suggestion of Google Home would have been better, but then again, I don't care much either way. It's still a great tool that I use every day.
Y'all are not seeing the big picture concerning Froogles name change to Google Product Search. If you notice the old Froogle now named Google Product Search is now in Beta. Hmmm! When iGoogle was in beta it was called Google Personalized. Is anyone beginning to see a pattern here? If I were a betting man I would bet my bottom dollar that the finished Google Product Search pages will be called iFroogle. I see this as Google streamlining their naming conventions amongst their product lines.
ReplyDeleteUgh, hate the iGoogle name too - trying to figure out where I can complain directly to Google.
ReplyDeleteNot only is it cliched, it's also unintuitive! Why would I as a user want to click a link called "iGoogle"?
I do think the name is a little unoriginal. But then i could mean interactive google. I think it sounds quite cool just as IG or maybe even My Google, but iGoogle, hummm. Anyway, i think the google homepage is very good.
ReplyDeleteDave, about your comment on Google hooking up with someone like Coghead... you should check out WyaWidget - it's an iGoogle Gadget... it's from WyaWorks and allows you to create all types of Gadgets and mini systems (CRM, PM..) all from iGoogle...
ReplyDeleteTo me the name iGoogle is childish. It appears to be targeted at the no brain kids that like sites like bebo etc.
ReplyDeleteIf the basic concept is a personalised page, couldn't they give us the option to replace the dumb iGoogle logo with the traditional one to stop it bugging people every time they look at it?
9/10 for the personalised page - I have it as my default page and like it.
-9/10 for the stupid name! I HATE it!
Just adding another vote on the "i" crap. When I need to make a difficult decision, the letter "i" in front of something provides an easy, "don't buy me" filter, freeing up my time to look at things that haven't been marked up via a cheap advertising gimmick.
ReplyDeleteNow, iGoogle being free, the unfortunate name is something I'm willing to overlook. Just, I can't help feeling insulted somehow every time I shop for my fiancee and browse past an iBra, or I hear about an iPhone, or I open up my browser and see an iGoogle.
On the bright side, if you use any of the "change the google logo" gadgets, the iGoogle logo gets stamped on top of it, leaving an illegible block of stray pixels :D
There is a reason I like Google. Plain old Google. Pretty annoying, having what looks like "My Yahoo" pop up when all I want is old google.
ReplyDeleteAnd the "i" in front of half the products out there is annoying as it is. Why did Google (which supposedly was so unique and imaginative etc) have to jump on the "i" bandwagon? This is the opposite of significance, if you ask me.
iPOD
ReplyDeleteiGoogle
iPHONE
iGoogle sounds way better than 'My Google' or 'Google Personalized Widget Homepage' or whatever. The less letters/syllables the better.
If I could have my way, Google would go back to being Google Beta. Remember Google Beta?
Search engines should be unbiased/transparent like Google Beta was.
This so cool. If you could make so more templates that will be cool.
ReplyDeleteIt would be nice to create a gadget by inputing my own HTML.
ReplyDeleteLove/Hate iGoogle, a little reluctant to call it that as I agree with a lot of what has been said hear regarding the name, it shouldn’t matter but it really dose especially if you’re a fan of Google and passionately hate apple.
ReplyDeleteMy real problem with it is that I now can’t live without the services it provides and with its major lack of reliability I will have to find another provider such as netvibes.com. It’s like driving a Renault Clio again, something breaks every bloody day. This is all a real shame because Google introduce me to this and I would love to stay loyal but it’s got to work more than 25% of the time even if it’s a beta.
Still love Google but they need to sort iGoogle, fast! and here’s a crazy idea rather than spend time and money coming up with a name just call it Google.
Jack
Can anyone help me here? I would like to delete the Daily Me gadget which I've created in the Wizard.
ReplyDeleteI can choose not to publish but the next time I search in iGoogle, it is still there and my email is also associated to it. How do I delete them completely?
Ther is nothing new on this
ReplyDeleteThe gadget maker has some good features, but I feel it's flooded the iGoogle library with lots of crap, because people are just creating personal stuff and posting them ... how many count downs of irrelevant days need to be in the iGoogle library?! It's truly degraded the library and made it difficult to find good stuff.
ReplyDeleteI build gadgets myself, so that's why I'm on my high horse :)
See Gadget Badger for a ZX Spectrum emulator with games and a super multi search tool, amongst other iGoogle Gadgets and banter.
I think this is perfect!!!
ReplyDeleteThe restaurant template doesn't allow you to rotate: daily or upon refresh and the pictures template doesn't allow you to link your pics/header to a website. What to do? Can Google please provide both features in ONE GADGET!!!
ReplyDeleteiGoogle can be a Facebook-like media! Of course, if more and more appropriate and better-looking gadgets are installed and if people can have the ability to interact morei with their friends thru ig..
ReplyDeleteI WANT FLEXIBILITY. Why don't they allow customizable gadgets. (Create your own HTML gadget). This would be easy. It's done everywhere. Why not here. That's what this is all about, right? Personalization!
ReplyDeleteCould you please get rid of the Make your page dialog box. Instead you can put an option for me to add anything I want. I reset my browser at the end of the day and the window shows up again. Its irritating.
ReplyDeletemade my first gadget with it
ReplyDeleteHey, don't get me wrong but I Love Google, however,w/o me doing anything sometimes I lose stuff on my homepage? please explain...What's up with that Jerry
ReplyDeleteHoly Smokes!! I'm kinda glad to see I'm not the only one with iGoogle Homepage problems, why does the homepage add or delete things by itself???, Yeah, but I quess it's a lot better than all the rest. Sincerely, Gerald
ReplyDeleteI Think Igoogle Is Amazing, It Gives You A Chance To Express Your Imagination.... Its Fab !!! :)
ReplyDeletehey guys...plz tell me how my name cud appear on googles homepage instead of google logo.. !!...
ReplyDeleteyes i need to know how to delete items from my igoogle homepage
ReplyDeleteHere is another review: http://blog-gabriel.mongefranco.com/2008/10/easy-gadgets-for-your-blog-facebook.html
ReplyDeleteI like them! Can we post them on sites like Facebook?
ReplyDeleteThis another kool gadget you can have for your web page.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.albumsandlyrics.com/lyricslookup_webgadget/
It's up and so good!
ReplyDeleteRecord, play and send!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.google.com/ig/adde?hl=it&moduleurl=http://www.voice-it.biz/files/getbyname/voice-it_for_igoogle.xml&source=imag
I'm trying to make a gadget but not able to make even one :(
ReplyDeleteI've made my first gadget with this. Thanks
ReplyDeletethis is stupid google looked loads better without this stupid iGoogle ?!
ReplyDeleteI love the tulips and would like some other flowers to mix it up a little!
ReplyDeletethanks
Glad they've managed to (as far as i know) fix the homepage errors the other day there.
ReplyDeleteI think the iGoogle is a great addition to the existing Google search system, since it lets you use Google as it was, but is way more customizable. The gadgets are nifty way to save your time by not having to look up different information on different websites. And it can either be used or not, the old Google page is still there =).
ReplyDeleteTry the hamster... I love it, it's just too adorable to be true:
http://abowman.com/google-modules/hamster/
Another one I love is this simple weather gadget which shows you the 72hour forecast, current weather, wind conditions, cloud coverage, humidity, daylight/nighttime line, temperature and other stuff I don't understand on a big map of the world...
http://www.google.com/ig/adde?synd=open&source=ggyp&moduleurl=www.meteo-si.com/meteo-si.xml
Think Igoogle Is Amazing
ReplyDelete