Some time back, I discussed the value of the Google Personalized Homepage, especially given that it now has RSS previews. Well, it looks like the world’s biggest search engine is at it again, this time taking a small page out of Apple’s book.
The Google personalized homepage — a place where you can stuff all sorts of widgets and RSS feeds — is now called iGoogle, following in the same naming scheme that spawned the iPod, iMac, and the upcoming iPhone. While the fundamental functionality of this page has remained unchanged, they did add in the ability to customize the theme.
The “Classic” theme is what you’re used to: a plain white background with blue-colored links, but for the more adventurous, Google now offers Beach, Bus Stop, City Scape, Sweet Dreams, Tea House, and Seasonal Scape. By far, the most legible is still Classic, but it’s also the most boring.
Currently, I’m going with the Beach theme, not only because it’s a little relaxing and gives me a mini-vacation each time I look at it, but also because “this theme will dynamically change to match your time of day, including local sunrise and sunset times.” Sort of like the in-game environment in Animal Crossing.
What theme, if any, are you using for your Google personalized homepage iGoogle? What’s your take on skins and themes in general?
I’ve gotta say, I’m not a big fan. The reason I started using Google in the first place was that it was so clean and simple. Plus, you never know when they’ll lose your settings.
If it aint broke don’t fix it.
Regarding skins and themes, i think they help people customize/individualize their blogs, sites etc. but i also think that you dont really need to have skins and themes and can customize/individualise through content.
Last day I saw the iGoogle instead of personalized home page but thought they had just changed the name…its only now that I came to know what they actually did with it..Nice post Michael
well, I would stay with just the plain, old google though.. If i use that, I would have to spend more time tingling with settings!
Nice write up on iGoogle. I just started fooling around with this the other day. Still deciding whether I like it or not.
I struggle to see a future for ‘portals’ like this. Sure it can be convenient if you can be bothered to take the time getting everything set up just as you like. The problem is, web users are lazy – will they take the time to do this in significant numbers?
– Martin Reed
To be honest I prefer simple and easy to read pages. I’m not into personalized pages. I use Google for email and searches, thats about it.
I just have to much info I want to see right away, this portal has saved me time and I really like how simple they have made it.