New Social Features in iGoogle

The Google personalized homepage iGoogle is now available in a preview version with new features, including social network functionality based upon Google's OpenSocial library.

clipped from googlesystem.blogspot.com Google Operating System clipped from googlesystem.blogspot.com Google's New Social Network: iGoogle Following orkut's model, iGoogle opened a sandbox for developers who write OpenSocial gadgets. The sandbox is probably a test for the next iteration of iGoogle: the personalized homepage turned into a social network. "The integration of OpenSocial with gadgets gives you an opportunity to enhance your content for users by incorporating social features. For example, a books gadget could display what a user's friends are reading, allow users to request to borrow books from friends' libraries, and show users books that their friends recently rated. As users share content with their friends, your gadget will naturally build a broad audience for distributing content and driving traffic," explains the new developer site for iGoogle gadgets. clipped from google-code-updates.blogspot.com Watch as Jake walks us through the sandbox and shows how to build a basic gadget.

Related:
An iGoogle Preview With Friends Features, Expandable Views
Google's New Social Network: iGoogle
Google Code Blog: Developer sandbox for iGoogle launches
Home (OpenSocial)
Google to Open up Its Social Platform
Google Intends to Integrate Its Social Applications

Google Spreadsheets Adds Gadgets

Google Spreadsheets as part of the Google Docs suite added several new features including a Google spreadsheet gadgets directory.

clipped from googlesystem.blogspot.com Google Operating System clipped from googlesystem.blogspot.com Google Spreadsheets Adds Gadgets, a Directory of Features To add a gadget, click on the "Insert" dropdown and select "Gadget". Each gadget can be embedded into web pages or added to iGoogle, which is extremely cool because the data is updated automatically. clipped from blogoscoped.com Currently available gadgets include: Motion chart: A Flash-based gadget animates certain numbers over time Gauges: Adds gauges (as pictured below) with dials visually indicating the cell values Table: Adds grouping and filtering features Heatmap: A world map is connected to your cells containing an ISO country code, and then add color of different intensities to the countries Web search and image search: Displays a result from Google by searching for your cell value Organization chart: Draws a hierarchy based on cells containing names (pictured) clipped from googlesystem.blogspot.com clipped from www.google.com clipped from www.google.com

Related:
Google Spreadsheet Gadgets and More
Google Spreadsheets Adds Gadgets, a Directory of Features
API: API Info
Google Visualization API - Google Code
Data Visualization Google Gadgets
Add gadgets to your homepage
Add gadgets to your homepage

Presidential Candidate Gadget

Presidential Candidates Stock Value

On the Gadgets directory blog we find a gadget to put on an iGoogle page or to embed in a web page which judges the presidential candidates as stock values:

Gadgets Directory: Presidential Candidate Gadget

Learnit lists -- Language Training Gadget

Put it on your site or iGoogle page and use it as an assistant to learn lists of words of a foreign language.

clipped from www.learnitlists.com You will soon be able to learn a few words of your chosen language every day with minimal effort. We are beginning with Spanish, French, Italian, German, Portuguese & Czech and will add more languages as they are requested. clipped from www.learnitlists.com Every day you will have 10 words to learn from a list of the 1000 most common English words. When you refresh the page, the words on your list will appear one by one. You will then be able to show or hide the meaning and swap between the two languages as you wish. clipped from www.learnitlists.com Learnit is currently available with the following language pairs: English/Czech English/Spanish English/German English/French English/Italian English/Portuguese.

Via: Gadgets Directory: Learn it lists Gadget
Related:
Learn it lists
Google Mini Apps: learnit lists Gadget
Learn It Lists - MySpace Developer Platform
learnit lists - Google Modules
Learn iT! - San Francisco Computer Training Courses