Article by George Norman

On 13 Aug 2009

Mountain View-based search engine giant has good news for the iGoogle user in the US of A: as of this week, the company will gradually roll out new iGoogle social gadgets and two new social features. Starting with the gadgets, they are standalone pieces of software that can be added to the user’s iGoogle homepage, allowing him to share content online, play online games with friends and collaborate with friends on various tasks.

“We’re excited to introduce social gadgets for iGoogle. The 19 social gadgets we're debuting today offer many new ways to make your homepage more useful and fun. If you're a gaming fanatic, compete with others in Who has the biggest brain? or challenge your fellow Chess or Scrabble enthusiasts to a quick match. Stay tuned in to the latest buzz with media-sharing gadgets from NPR , The Huffington Post , and YouTube . To manage your day-to-day more efficiently, check things off alongside your friends with the social To-Do list gadget,” commented Marissa Mayer, VP, Search Products & User Experience and Rose Yao, iGoogle Product Manager


The new social features are called “Friends group” and “Updates.” You can share social gadgets with the friends of your choosing by setting up a “Friends group,” a list of friends based on a subset of your Google Contacts. The second social feature, “Updates,” lets you see what your friends are up to by sharing gadgets, photos, ratings and much more directly from the iGoogle social gadgets.

Please note that the social gadgets and features can be disabled at any time. The option to take advantage of iGoogle’s social offerings is completely up to you. You will be able to tell social-enabled gadgets apart from regular gadgets thanks to a special icon.

“We introduced these new social features recently to Australia users and are gradually rolling them out to users in the U.S. over the next week. Don't fret if you don't see your iGoogle page updated yet — just check back soon. The Google homepage has always been a place that connects people to information, and we're excited to now also be a place that connects people to each other. We hope these social gadgets make iGoogle an even more fun and personal homepage for you,” added Mayer and Yao.

A video presenting the new social gadgets in iGoogle has been posted on YouTube here.
If you want to get started with iGoogle social gadgets, please click here.
If you do now know how to use the social gadgets, see this help article.



Tags: Google, iGoogle, Gadgets, Social gadgets, Social features

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