Google’s personal search service is now called iGoogle

Google brings the personalized search services together under the name iGoogle and comes with a number of extensions. Users will be able to self-publish content via a gadget and get search results based on their location.

Two years ago, Google introduced the personal homepage, where users could supplement the Google homepage with, among other things, the headlines of news sources. While the company is far from alone in offering personalized homepages, personalization has become one of the most important developments for Google, according to the search company’s Marissa Mayer. To make the services in this area more recognizable, the company has now changed the name of the personal home page to iGoogle.

One of the extensions that iGoogle gets is a gadget maker. Users are presented with seven gadgets in their browser that they can fill in themselves. For example, there is a gadget that shows a series of uploaded photos, gadgets that display lists of favorite YouTube videos or music tracks and ‘Daily Me’, a kind of blog gadget. Friends and acquaintances can subscribe to each other’s gadgets and thus stay informed of the ins and outs of the other. The ‘community’ gadget folder shows who publishes their own gadgets in the Gmail contact list.

Another extension is geographical search. Internet users who specify a default location via Google Maps will receive a list of results with a search that is adapted to the place they have entered. When users search for ‘pizza’, they get the addresses of nearby pizza restaurants, rather than the most visited pizza restaurant site. Google will launch iGoogle this week in twenty-six languages ​​and in more than 40 countries. The dynamic personal home page themes, launched in March, will also be available to users outside the US within a few days.