Grounded In Reality

If you know me, I have probably told you that I think everyone should have one…and I do.  But this morning, as I go to read my morning paper (AKA my Google Homepage) it has this funny letter in front of it?  An i.  But why?

I did the ususal to find out what the creative decoration of ‘Google’ meant by scrolling across it — nothing.  So, I close out of my personalized page and go to the main page to scroll across it — nothing.  What next? Google’s blog, where of course, I find the answer:

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.

Not a fan.  The lowercase “i” is WAY overused.  More than ‘that’s hot’…more than ‘duh’, ’sych’ and ‘dude’ all combined.  IMHO, Unless you are in a deal with Apple and required to start your products with an “i”, then DON’T DO IT. (anyone else feel this strongly?)

– I digress –

There is some interesting news following the name change (if you can get past it).  You get more capabilities and they come in the form of a photo gadget, a “GoogleGram” greeting card-style gadget, a YouTube video channel gadget, and a free-form gadget.  Create your own.

The photo one should be popular, based on the popularity of photo slideshows on MySpace. This will definitely consume some of my time today, but it will have to wait until this afternoon.  In the mean time, someone else should send me a GoogleGram!