iGoogle, uGoogle, everyoneGoogle

For those of you that don't know (which should really be none of you since you should already be using this), Google has renamed their Personalized Homepage to iGoogle. Ars Technica says that according to a Google VP, the name was originally thought up back in 2005 but wasn't used at the time. Given the URL, I'm pretty sure that this is the case. I've been using the service ever since it first launched, and I love it. I've been trying to convince people to use it and see the goodness. I love the customization that it allows. I know that there are a lot of customizable home pages out there, but I still prefer Google's. Part of that could just be that I've been using it for so long. With this new name also comes the ability to create custom gadgets. They're touting it as the ability to build your own gadget without any programming, but it seems to mostly just be a configurable pre-made one. Well, not just one, there are a few. I don't know how useful they'd be, though, and none of them were personally interesting to me, for what it's worth.

There have also been a lot of reports lately with people having problems with their iGoogle pages. They have been reverting back to previous versions that had been used. This hasn't happened to me, so I can't speak from personal experience, but a few people I know have had it happen. One of them confirmed that within a day it reset itself back to how he originally had it. However, since he had already started rebuilding it, it took those changes into account as well. I'm pretty confident that this is a result of the changes that they have been doing, and is not likely to be a long term problem. I've been using the page for a couple years now, and this is the first time I've seen problems like this. I wouldn't let these reports discourage you from using it.