Getting Up To Speed

Got tons to talk about so let's get started!

First and foremost, I am a Googlemaniac. I am a strong supporter/fan of all things Google does (with the notable exception of Presentations, which, frankly, needs help). From my Google brain right down to my Google socks (like these, sported by Dean Shareski, only red), I have found little to be disappointed with. Except for my obvious disappointment with the obvious "dis" I got by not getting ONE invitation to Google Wave. ...and after everything I've done for them... *sigh*

Anyway, pouting and pity parties aside, I am in the process of putting together NUMEROUS conference presentations (read: drowning in my own blood, meaning I chose this path). One of them is on "Stuff Management". I am talking about organizational tools for Web 2.0. One of my favorites (it's my homepage in all browsers) is iGoogle. This awesome tool went completely under my radar for several months after it came out, thanks to Google's complete and total LACK of advertising/marketing about any of the cool tools they have. This isn't a complaint, I just find it funny that a company with so many amazing resources seems to just release them into the wild with little more fanfare than a simple press release. You know... "Oh yeah... Here's this thing... it's called Google Wave. No biggie. Here ya go. Play with it. It's only going to REVOLUTIONIZE THE WAY WE COMMUNICATE..." Ok... That last part was mine, but still.

The reason I say this is that I completely STUMBLED ONTO iGoogle. In fact, if it hadn't been for a very sensitive touchpad on my laptop, I probably would never have accidentally fallen into the tool at all! Now I can't live without it.

Image via CrunchBase

For those who don't know, it is a personal homepage (yes, you have to have an account at Google). Now I have never been a fan of personal homepages because I found them pretty much useless (I'm looking at you MSN). But imagine taking all of the websites you go to minute by minute on a daily basis (Twitter, anyone? mkay... how bout FACEBOOK... yeah... I thought so...) and wrapping them up in one neat, tidy page that you can organize and decorate to your heart's content... That'd be cool, no? Well, Google did it.

There are hundreds to perhaps thousands of widgets that you add to your page (and it's unbelievably easy to add stuff and move it around). Then with a little simple configuration, you have one spot to monitor like a big Web 2.0 dashboard. For teachers and librarians, there are also weather widgets, pictures of the day, words of the day, and many other useful little widgets for your daily consumption.

I haven't shown this to one person who didn't immediately run out and try it. Most of them stuck with it and now, like me, can't live without. Lessee... Easy, effective, flexible, useful, low bandwidth, efficient... I could go on...?

Find it at http://www.google.com/ig

Image Credit: Shareski via Flickr