Making iGoogle Work for You

First Posted October 19, 2010

iGoogle allows you to build a customized homepage that scours the Internet and brings you customized information, in real time, that is only of interest to you. Here are my favourite iGoogle widgets and how I use them.

Within iGoogle, you can actually set up several pages (think tabs in a binder). Below is a summary of my personal tab; I also have another tab set up for global industry RSS feeds. It may take you some time to get your homepage just how you like it, but when you do, it will save you hours of time, since you only need to check one website – versus a dozen – to get the information you want. If you have your own favourite widget(s), please share them!

Google Analytics Blog – This daily blog provides tips and tricks to get the most out of your Google Analytics and maximize your online performace and productivity.

Google Research Blog – I’ll quickly admit this blog is not for the faint of heart. The topics cover what Google is researching to develop next (a.k.a. what Google considers the future). You may not understand the technical terms, but it is interesting to see what they are working on.

Google Hot Trends – This is a cool widget; it displays the top 10 searched terms in Google in real time.

The Globe & Mail | CBC | Google News – These three sites constantly provide breaking news and their widgets bring the breaking news directly to my home page.

Facebook – This feed allows me to see the most recent status updates of my friends without having to visit my Facebook page. For those of you that are not allowed to surf Favebook at work, this widget might allow you to work around your firewalls!

TSN.ca Top Stories | ESPN.com NFL – The best part about making a customized homepage is you can mix business with pleasure in one location. I like to follow the NFL and sports in general and this widget gives me the recent news as it happens.

Today’s Horoscope | People.com – I keep these two on my home page for pure fun. I consider horoscopes like my daily smile and People.com reassures me that fame & money is not all it’s cracked up to be!