Google changes iGoogle, making gadget development more profitable
20 October 2008
On Thursday, Google rolled out an update to its personalized home page service, iGoogle. Among other UI updates, the major new features were increased flexibility in what “gadgets”, the personalized “chunks” that make up an iGoogle start page, can do. This, in turn, allows developers much more freedom with what they can provide to the user through an iGoogle gadget.
Previously, gadgets could only occupy a small box that took up only a third of the screen. While this was okay for reading headlines or perhaps glancing at stock prices, it limited the usefulness of gadgets and the information that could be provided. For more detail, users would often have to click a link in the gadget that would take them away from iGoogle. While this is perhaps the proper use of a “start page”, Google may now see things differently.