iGoogle…The new name for the Google Personalized Homepage. According to Marissa Mayer, Google Personalized Homepage was thought up in 2004 and they originally planned to call it “iGoogle”. But Google decided they really wanted the personalized homepage to be a feature, not a product. Hence, it doesn’t have a particular name until today.

The URL for the Google Personalized Homepage “www.google.com/ig” makes everyone think the product name is Google IG. Now we know what the “ig” stands for in the iGoogle Personalized Homepage URL.

“[S]tarting today, without having any programming or web design experience at all, anyone can create Google Gadgets for iGoogle and send them to friends,” wrote iGoogle software engineer Sophia Brueckner in the company’s official blog.

iGoogle will let you build your own gadgets using wizards. The gadgets are very simple and are more like containers for things that matter to you: photos, videos, events.

There are 7 new gadget templates:

1. Photo album - add up to 7 photos that can be rotated.
2. GoogleGram - enter seven greeting messages.
3. Daily Me - type what you are doing.
4. Countdown - count the days until a special event.
5. Simple list - you can use it as a ToDo list, shopping list.
6. YouTube videos - will let you create a YouTube channel and share up to 10 videos.
7. Freeform gadget - add an image and some text.

You can invite other people to view & use the gadget, and make it publicly available for other people to view and use it. Visit http://www.google.com/ig/gmchoices and make your own gadget.

For more detail information, visit Google Blogoscoped.