Few days back I set up my browser for iGoogle. I had been thinking of doing this for a long time but kept away from this for a simple reason that I will write about later. For people who don’t know what iGoogle is, it’s a customizable web page that helps you to add a whole range of updates like weather, news, stock quotes, jokes etc..
I have used a similar kind of utility provided by Yahoo long time back. Though I didn’t use the yahoo service for that long when I started using iGoogle it reminded me of the yahoo page. It seems like iGoogle was programmed with the Yahoo page in mind.
As I was telling this to my friend he said Google nowadays launches a lot of services that are lifted from other sites. Being a loyal Google user for a longtime now I denied that and did a small search on this (using Google). To my surprise the search threw up a lot articles that supported his argument.
I know many would be surprised as I was reading this, but go ahead and search on this and you will know what I said is right.
Of late Yahoo is coming up with some great services that are better than Google. For example take the case of Yahoo Alpha – the customizable search engine page. This yahoo offering is far better than the google custom search. Unlike google’s custom search which is closely linked to its web search this gives you a better result. Know what this Yahoo offering was launched much before the Google custom search.
Coming back to iGoogle, Google is always known for its faster homepage. The very reason it clicked when it was for its simplicity. It was refreshing to see a search page with almost nothing in its homepage, when Yahoo which was the number one then had close to 200 links filled in its home page. Now with the iGoogle in your browser it slows down the page and it takes ages for it to open. So I don’t think it makes a good business sense for Google to come up with iGoogle.
What ever said and done I don’t think many will move away from Google in near future, but with Yahoo coming up with many new services I think it will over take it in sometime to come.
RJ
