14 DAY TRIAL // Google debuted a new name for its famous Personalized Homepage that brings the Mountain View-based company a little bit closer to Apple, the well known producer of Mac OS X. The search giant presented a new version of Personalized Homepage, codenamed iGoogle that reveals some interesting features and abilities that will surely attract more users. As I reported yesterday, Google introduced some new themes for the product that help clients customize the appearance of their own website, improving it with spring elements. However, the company prepared even more features and bundled them in a new version of the service that was released today under a new name.
"For a while now, we Googlers have used a bit of shorthand to refer to the Personalized Homepage -- a name that connotes interactivity, the Internet, and personalization all at once. Please meet iGoogle, the new name for the Google Personalized Homepage. Today we're also making the themes that have been so popular on iGoogle in the U.S. available on every edition of iGoogle around the world, and we're making iGoogle available in 22 new locales. Visit iGoogle and click "Select theme" to pick a theme for your own page," Sophia Brueckner, Software Engineer, iGoogle, sustained on the official blog.
The announcement comes after one week since iGoogle, the old Personalized Homepage, was involved in some big problems concerning the content stored on the accounts. As you might know, a lot of users reported that their account was reverted to default and none of the added elements, such as gadgets or search boxes, were available. However, the search giant identified the problem and fixed it quickly enough to restore all settings.
This is the second rename of this period because the Mountain View company also changed the name of the well-known Froogle to Product Search. However, the Google official didn't mention the reasons for these several new names, sustaining the new services contain several improvements.