Google Personalized Homepage is now iGoogle

Google Personalized Homepage has been rebranded iGoogle and will relaunch at iGoogle.com. I always wondered why they had “ig” in the personalized homepage URL; finally we know that it means iGoogle.

Google has also released a simple Gadget Maker to help users build their own iGoogle gadgets without any coding knowledge. Google will provide seven pre-built gadgets to start (see them here). Once you’ve built the gadget, you can invite your friends or make it publicly available, so that others can try them. You’ll also be able to check out gadgets created by your Gmail contacts under a new section called ‘My Community’. Several sources like TechCrunch have indicated that iGoogle.com will be launched today, but as of now, the site isn’t functional.

Google had organized a workshop on Google’s personalization services for bloggers and journalists at the Googleplex, Google Blogoscoped has an inside coverage of the workshop. In my opinion the name sounds too Applish, they could have come up with something like GPage as they are stepping into the crowded AJAX homepage market, but then again iGoogle is better than its previous name which was quite hard to remember.

This post was published by on May 1, 2007

About the Author: Thilak Rao works as a Social Media Expert. He is one of the first professional bloggers from India, and he loves to write, travel and click photos. Follow him on Twitter @thilak

  • http://www.mikroproje.com zoid

    I know this would happen in a short manner.

  • http://www.dailyblogtips.com Daniel

    Am I the only one thinking the new name sucks?

  • http://tech-buzz.net Thilak

    Daniel: I agree with you, read the last paragraph

  • http://www.dailyblogtips.com Daniel

    Yeah its not only Appleish, it sucks big time :) .

    I agree Gpage would have been better.

  • http://www.arbitraryian.com/ Yian

    Hahaha. I just noticed this. At first I was thinking: where the heck did my “Personalized Home” go to? Then I realized there was a new button called “iGoogle” and thought that maybe that was it.

    But the new name is a bit misleading…I mean, what the heck does iGoogle have to do with personalizing your home page?

  • http://www.noheat.com Wiseassoffice

    Welcome back to the year 1998 folks…Maybe now we can get our Google in different colors? Bondi Blue Google anyone?. I think Eric Schmidt was spending too much time at Apple because now he thinks he’s a iCEO.

    Isn’t that insanely great!

    http://www.noheat.com

  • http://www.thenetguruz.com/ Mohd. Hashim Khan

    I think soon Apple gonna sue google for this :P
    But igoogle is quite smart name as it means I use Google which is quite true for most of the people.

  • http://www.webmaster-dome.com/ Sreejith

    Well, actually, Google might’ve thought that they need to retain their “Google” trademark in the name to lure some guys over from other homepages since the market is tight. But its just a crazy idea. lol

  • http://www.techzilo.com TechZilo

    iGoogle? Sucks. Where did they get that name from?

    Anyway, this is not the first time. They have had a history of poor naming conventions before.

    GPage would have been better. Only problem is that it is similar to Google Pages – GooglePAGEs :P

  • http://www.avirtualexit.com Web 2.0

    I believe the name is ok, no need to be such an innovator, simplicity and usability are the keys as long as features richness. Google’s goal is to beat Netvives, MyYahoo and those alike

  • http://www.odysen.com matt

    An alternative is Odysen at http://www.odysen.com.

    One of the key differences being the free-formatting widgets, allowing you to make the widgets as big or small as you want, very helpful for widgets such as a nine day weather forecast, map, or YouTube video widgets.

    Another difference is a much more space for the user, ie the large Google search bar at the top of an iGoogle page takes up almost 50% of your space.

    Anyway, hope you can stop by and check out Odysen sometime. There’s also a blog available for feature updates and page examples, located at http://odysen.blogspot.com.