New Canvas View Gadgets for iGoogle

Announcement
October 16, 2008

Today, we’re starting to roll out an updated version of iGoogle to users in the U.S. The key feature of the updated version of iGoogle is canvas view gadgets, which allows users to expand a gadget to access more content. For example, now users can read news, play games and watch videos in full-page view, without leaving their homepage. A few examples of gadgets that take advantage of this new canvas view mode include:

• News – The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post offer users the option to view full-page text and videos that load quickly.
• Games & Fun – The Sudoku gadget lets users play full-page sudoku puzzles – there are thousands of puzzles to choose from – without squinting at 6 point font. The Go Comics gadget lets users select which comics they want to see and read them in a full-screen view
• Entertainment/media – The TV Guide gadget provides full-screen TV listings that can be localized by zip code, celebrity news, and photos. If the user likes to watch movies more than TV, Flixster’s movies gadget gives the user access to trailers, ratings, theater information, and more. For music lovers, the iLike gadget gives users access to news, concerts, and even free MP3s from their favorite musicians. Users can also watch the best videos from YouTube and Current News in full screen view.
• Communication/tools – With the Gmail gadget users can now perform simple actions on Gmail without leaving their iGoogle page, like send or reply to emails. The weather gadget allows users to dive into detailed hourly weather forecast and even air quality information for their local area. The Google Finance canvas view gadget provides full-screen finance charts and news of the stocks in their portfolio.

For a full list of highlighted canvas view gadgets, see: www.google.com/ig/v2landing

We’ve also made some other changes to the iGoogle interface, like replacing the tabs with left navigation. This allows users to jump from one canvas view to another with only one click.

To ensure a great user experience, we’ve been busy testing these new iGoogle features on small groups of users. This is just the beginning and we will continue to add more features to iGoogle and gadgets to make them more useful and interactive. For developers and content owners, canvas view gadgets allow more possibilities for building rich, compelling gadgets. In addition, developers will now have an opportunity to earn revenue from their gadgets on iGoogle by placing ads in the canvas view mode of their gadgets.

For more information, please visit: googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/whats-new-with-igoogle.html