iGoogle: The Epitome of Google Personalization
It wouldn't truly be "Google Personalization" week if we didn't talk about iGoogle. After all, it is the epitome of personalization for Google. It was their fastest growing product in 2006 and is available in 40 countries and 26 languages. Formerly known as Google Personalized Homepage or the abbreviated Google IG, iGoogle is a personalized AJAX start page.
Initial Experience
Much like its close rivals Netvibes, Pageflakes, Protopage, you do not need an account to gain initial access to the default start page. Immediately, you are thrown into the mix. You are able to edit, drag, drop, add, delete, expand, or collapse to your heart's desire. But once you are set on using the service, you will need to register or log into your Google account to save your settings. Doing so will allow you to access this personalized start page from any computer once logged in.
Next, you may want to choose a theme and/or color palette for your page. Initial default content will fill your screen based on your location. In my case, CBC News headlines and TSN sports tidbits occupied the space, as I am located in Canada. Other popular "gadgets" (a.k.a. widgets) populate the rest of the space. These may include horoscope, weather, as well date and time, to name a few.
Adding Content
Specific content can be added via a URL or RSS feed. Google also offers a list of categories to choose from. A simple one-click system facilitates the process for new users. The categories include:
- Popular
- News
- Tools
- Communication
- Fun & Games
- Finance
- Sports
- Lifestyle
- Technology
- New stuff
As a side note, I found a bit of bias toward Google content. In other words, it seemed that the YouTube and Gmail gadgets (among others) were more prominently positioned than some of the non-Google content.
Personalizing Your Page
Once you're satisfied with the content you've added, you can begin personalizing your page. You can move things around or delete any unwanted content. You can even edit individual gadgets. For example: if you are displaying a feed, you can customize it so that you only see the most recent item, or as many as the 9 most recent items.
Collapsing or expanding gadgets will provide better use of the page space. Doing so with the individual blog posts or news feeds is also a great way to catch up on the news and save time. However, some content providers do not provide full feeds. Others tack on ads at the end of full feeds to provide some incoming revenue.
With gadgets still in mind, iGoogle also:
- Provides recommendations to similar content.
- Enables you to learn more about the content source.
- Allows you to share with a friend.
You will also notice that Google makes excellent use of tabs. Think Firefox. You can create a tab based on a specific topic, area of interest, or category. These ensure that you will not need to scroll down your start page for hours in order to find a given piece of content. Subsequently, tabs can either be renamed, shared, or deleted.
Conclusion
AJAX start pages becoming very popular. Though iGoogle may lack some of the functionality and features of the space leaders mentioned above (most notably a more intuitive set-up process), I found the service loads and operates much faster. All in all, however, I was a bit disappointed by the overall service. I guess I've just come to expect demand a lot from Google. This offering was simple and clean, but nothing revolutionary or ground-breaking. I commend them on a job well done, but expect bigger things in future iterations.
Comments
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iGoogle is indeed nice, but it still does not work for early Google Apps users who got their Google Account / identity all messed up.
Netvibes is way better than iGoogle or the rest.
The fact that they have fully integrated podcasting and content caching just does it for me.
I wrote a quick tutorial on how to create your own custom iGoogle themes. Might be useful for anyone wanting to customize their look to their own liking.
I am probably in the minority, but I've tried all the other start pages and I always come back to iGoogle. It's the simplest, and sometimes simple is the best.
Igoogle Rocks.
Netvibes and Pageflakes sucks. They are too heavy.
I don't care about tons of fonctions. Users like simplificty because 80% use only 20% of fonctionnality.
Just curious, has anyone heard or tried PersonalWeb?
It's a start page that automatically auditiones and recommends content based on the user search behaviour.
The user can manually add gizmos and RSS feeds and stop personalization, or let the application recommend.
curious if there is any feedback.
It's launched as MySportsnet, start page focused on sports content in Canada.
Though I normally like almost all the services offered by Google, I gotta say that Netvibes is much much much better than iGoogle.
iGoogle looks like a place full of toys. In other words, it doesn't have 'tech' feel. I've tried to use it too many times but each and every time, the bulky themes, modules and their weird colors disappoint me.
A proven rule of thumb is avoid any
product starting with the letter i.
iuliana, yes I know PersonalWeb, and this is a supposedly new release of Claria's Axion new product/technology of which PersonalWeb is the outcome. You remember Claria the malware/spyware right? Well, it's back! Which is why I am tempted to try, but I'd rather not, given Claria's history.
but old news
I'd love to use a personalised homepage, I really would. Todo list, email, weather, all within easy reach from any computer.
But what's stopping me is the way RSS feeds are so poorly supported. I'm sure I'm not unique. I subscribe to around 200 RSS feeds, some of which get updated irregularly, some of which may get 30 items in a day (or more). Yet no personalised homepage allows me to browse, say, a hundred items in a feed at a time. I cannot aggregate feeds under a category heading - they all have to be individual feeds in individual boxes.
I used Bloglines for a time, but found it too clunky in the end. Moved to Gregarius, which is OK, but nothing special.
If a personalised homepage provider could present a decent feed reader, allowing easy browsing of older feed items and grouping of feed items into categories (so each feed doesn't have to have it's own box) I'd be sold.
Until then it's a much of a muchness. Pretty widgets, they all do the same or a similar thing, and all missing the functionality I need.
Alex,
if you use the Google reader module in your iGoogle home page, you'll see categorized RSS feeds.
I'm really sad to see such a good review of such an evil product.
I use www.NetVibes.com and now have a few hundred feeds all very nicely nested under different tabs.
I've blogged about the dangers of adopting iGoogle - but more so how iGoogle Gadgets are evil. Beware of iGoogle destination web sites
Decide for yourself,
Over and Out
I use both iGoogle and Netvibes, but for different purposes.
iGoogle's advantage is its fast loading and overall lightweight feel. I use it for a few rss feeds that I read on a daily basis, a simple todo list, weather, and a few reference widgets.
I use netvibes more for serious reading about specific topics. I like being able to organize a whole bunch of feeds by topic, and then also having feeds organized spatially, since it helps me remember who is who. Netvibes just provides many more options for setting up and organizing your content, and without the earlier mentioned google bias.
For a simple but effective unbiased homepage try www.yumgo.co.uk
I am not so sure Google has it right with iGoogle. For some unexplained reason there are features on the iGoogle page that I just cannot get rid of no matter how hard i try. Then the themed versions seem to provide trite little features that would be better gone. I would like just two rows of stuff and not three. But this cannot be changed. I like a sparse page and cannot achieve that with three columns. There is a lot more that Google can do with this personalization page.
very good.but speed no feel