The Web, in general, and Google, in particular, will become more personalized and more social – focused on connecting us with friends through shared activities, Google said Tuesday as it rolled out new features to its iGoogle personal homepage.
But the most interesting part of the announcement may have been what was not yet ready for prime time. “We’re working on a number of new features that address this mission,” the company said.
One will integrate chat into the iGoogle personal homepage, just like it is with Gmail today.
The company kept the others a secret.
The features that did go live were more incremental. Gadgets now can expand to full screen and a left-side navigation bar lets people tab among online gadgets.
Explaining the full screen gadgets, Google said it realized that people weren’t always just looking for quick updates in small-sized boxes. Now a weather gadget can open to provide a full weekend weather report.
“It is clear that the new left-hand navigation bar is most controversial change we’ve made,” Google said on a Web page explaining the features.
IGoogle gadgets including new navigation bar
Jean-Baptiste Su
Mark Boslet
