Google is going very fast with iGoogle, how fast?. well if things go well. the new iGoogle could get released this very week after a mere month of testing . it may also be already out for you because it is being under final testing at random.
The most notable thing about this new iGoogle is not the actual redesign of the iGoogle homepage. that is kinda minimal. neither is the addition of gchat. that is something everyone saw coming. the real surprise was the revelation of the true reasons behind the iGoogle Canvas and how this affects iGoogle Gadgets. the thing is that now iGoogle Gadgets can and will be able to “extend†if used in iGoogle. this means that in reality you will have two gadget (widget) instances. one the common igoogle gadget that is the version that will be able to be portable as a web gadget or to be used in the Google Desktop Gadget Sidebar and what can be seen as a Gadget-App that extends in the iGoogle canvas. a widgetized version of a service. in this case we are of course going to see Google Services as the first to arrive to it.
The first examples of this are Gmail and Google Reader. services that start as the respective iGoogle Gadget of each service and that once extended turn into a Gadget-App with a widgetized version of each service that retains all of the key functionality of the service.
There is no reason we should not see the “Crown†of google services into iGoogle in the same way. i am of course talking about Google Docs. something that would make sense and would end up bringing lots of new and extra usage to them. the same goes for the “external†properties of google like YouTube, Picasa, Orkut and even Blogger.
This brings the very possible exciting scenario that iGoogle will be Google version of a Web OS. i would not be surprised if that is also the goal with Google Desktop if integrated with Google Gears. it could bring iGoogle to the Desktop and at the same time Google Web OS. it may sounds like i am getting ahead of myself but it is where Google seems to be pointing at.
via GOS
