iGoogle gets social: play games with friends, share gadgets and more…
By
Mihir Patkar |
Updated on 13-Aug-2009
Google’s start page, iGoogle, has gotten a heavy dose of the “connected” social Web with the introduction of 19 new ‘social gadgets’, a Friends group and various sharing opportunities.
“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,” Marissa Mayer, vice-president and product manager wrote on the official Google blog.
Basically, when you add the new gadgets, you get to ‘share’ them with your friends using a small button in the top-right corner, next to the ‘minimise’ and ‘close’ buttons. The friends, of course, are Google contacts that can be added and deleted as per your wish.
“To help you manage who you are sharing with, we’ve created a Friends group. You can add and edit friends in this group at any time. If you already have a Friends group within your Google Contacts, you’ll be able to easily share with those friends on iGoogle as well,” Mayer wrote.
Of course, the social gadgets can be used by themselves as well, without having to share with a friend.
So how do you keep a friend informed about additions and other changes? The new ‘Update’ feature, of course.
“Your friends are able to see what you share or do in your social gadgets either by having the same gadgets on their homepages, or through a new feed called Updates. Updates can include your recently shared photo albums, your favorite comics strips, your travel plans for the weekend and more,” Mayer explained.
The tools are incredibly easy to use and collaboration becomes a snap. Playing games with all our Google contacts? Goodbye, Yahoo games; hello iGoogle!