Yes, you can have a pony

Posted by Adam Sah, Software Engineer

It's crazy over here -- in the last few months, we've had thousands of gadgets submitted for the Google Personalized Homepage. If you've used it, you've seen them -- those useful little units you can add, remove, and move around on your page. We have old-school games, clocks, calendars, and horoscopes. We've got a VAT calculator. We've got a pony.

We've extended these gadgets to work on Google Desktop and Google Pages, but it occurred to us that these would be slick on other people's web pages, too.

Today we're opening up our gadget inventory for your viewing and cloning pleasure. In other words, now you can copy and paste some simple HTML to add the Google Gadgets you like to your own webpage. Check out our directory of Google Gadgets for your webpage to see all the options. And as always, if you can't find one like the one you had in mind, you can always write a gadget yourself.

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Map Search gadget for the homepage

Posted by Tom Stocky, Product Manager

We just released a Google Map Search gadget for the personalized homepage -- an easy way do local searches and then quickly scroll through the results on a map. You programmers might like to know that this makes use of three Google APIs at the same time: the Google AJAX Search API, the Google Maps API, and the Google Gadgets API. The next challenge? Let's go for four...

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Saved locations on Google Maps

Posted by Thai Tran, Product Manager

One of the most common requests we've received is for the ability to store a list of personal addresses on Google Maps -- and now you can. To get started, click on the "Saved Locations" link in the upper right corner of the site and sign in to your Google Account. If you're already signed in, this link will take you to your saved locations list -- Google Maps will automatically save every location you search for. You can also go to the Saved Locations list to disable auto-saving of locations or to add, modify, or delete previously-saved locations.

From here, you can also add a label (your choice of an easy-to-remember name, e.g."home") to any of your saved locations. The next time you start entering an address or a label into Google Maps, we'll offer to auto-complete it for you if it's in your saved locations. Auto-completion is also available when you're searching for businesses. If you've labeled the address "1600 Amphitheatre Pky, Mountain View, CA" as "work" (as some Googlers would), when you start typing [pizza near work], we'll offer to auto-complete it as [pizza near 1600 Amphitheatre Pky, Mountain View, CA].

Here’s a tip: When a list of auto-completions is offered, you can hit the Tab key to select the first one.

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Make your own buttons

Posted by Ben Lewis, Toolbar Product Manager

Custom Buttons are by far my favorite feature in the new Google Toolbar, which comes out of beta today. Clearly I’m not the only one, either -- we have over 600 buttons in the gallery, with new buttons being added every day -- and here are some some of my favorites, if you'd like to add them to your Toolbar. If you’re interested in making your own, it’s pretty easy. Just go to one of your favorite sites, right-click on the search box, and then click “Generate Custom Search.” You can find out how to add advanced features to your buttons here.

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Home on the road

Posted by Maryam Kamvar, Software Engineer

It may be liberating to step away from your computer and out into the world -- but who can stand to leave the convenience of the Internet behind? I like to take the information I need with me -- like news, weather, Gmail, and everything else from my Google Personalized Homepage -- and now so can you. Before you take off, customize your mobile home page from your computer. On your Personalized Homepage, decide what you want to add to your phone, then drag and drop to reorder the items. On the road, in line, or wherever you go, you can view all this information on your phone. The world is waiting!

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More of the world in your pocket

Posted by Abhijit Kalamkar, Software Engineer

Today Google's mobile web services get a bit more worldly: We've just added a raft of new languages to the pocket-sized versions of Gmail, News, and Personalized Home. Along with U.S. and U.K. English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Dutch, Russian, Chinese, and Turkish interfaces to most of these products.

If you've already used any of Google's products on your mobile device (like Maps), you know it's a great way to stay connected to the Internet, even if your PC is miles away. What's handy about these three products in particular is that they keep you in touch with the information that matters most to you.

Personalized Home, for instance, displays the same customized content as your personalized Google homepage on the PC, but in a phone-friendly format that's easy to read and navigate. (If you've been looking for a fast, easy way to view any feed via your phone, here it is.)

Then there's Gmail. If you've ever been on the road, desperate to remember something like a flight confirmation number that's stashed in your inbox, or directions to a party you were sure you could remember, this mobile version of Gmail lets you quickly search, read, and reply to email wherever you are. (And note the nifty mobile-specific features we've added, like Gmail's ability to directly call buddies in your contact list.)

News can get personal, too: now you can search across mobile news sources to reel in the latest news on whatever subject you're a fan of, whether it's 'arsenal football' or just all things 'macintosh' -- wherever and whenever. So give 'em all a whirl -- visit Google in your mobile phone's browser, and click the News, Gmail, or Personalized Home links.

You might just discover the little communications device in your pocket has just become a whole lot more valuable.

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More gadgets, more places

Posted by Sophia Brueckner, Software Engineer

We've released the Personalized Homepage feature in Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Ireland and New Zealand, so that more of you around the world can put the information you want on your Google homepage.

And given the football frenzy now underway, we've included the gadget for the World Cup in these new editions to make live scores, standings and schedules available. So hop to it now for soccer updates or other info (like news, weather, recent Gmail messages, and feeds from your favorite sites).

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Mark this for future reference

Posted by Jenny Zhang, Software Engineer

Ever forget to return to a website you bookmarked? If you’re like me, the answer is "definitely." For those of us with more than a few neglected bookmarks, the enhanced search box in the newest Google Toolbar beta can help you rediscover them. Now when you start typing in the Toolbar's search box, relevant bookmarks that you’ve saved with the Toolbar will display in the list of suggestions.

And since bookmark negligence seems to be a worldwide phenomenon, the Google Toolbar beta for Internet Explorer is now available in 16 additional languages: UK English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Dutch, Brazilian Portuguese, Finnish, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Japanese, Korean, and Russian. So don't let your bookmarks fade away – install the Toolbar beta for IE today.

Update: Last sentence now specifies that Google Toolbar 4 is currently for Internet Explorer only.

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Note this

Posted by Bay-Wei Chang, Senior Research Scientist

Search is all about finding the answers you need. Unfortunately, some kinds of questions--like where you should stay and what you should do on your Hawaiian vacation, or what kind of digital camera you should buy, or what the latest treatments for arthritis are--can't always be answered in one sitting, or by visiting one site.

That's why we built Google Notebook--to give you an online "notebook" where you can organize all your research, add personal notes to it, and share it with others. Google Notebook surfs along quietly with you as you browse, letting you clip and annotate whatever text, images, and links that help answer your question, all without ever leaving the webpage you're on.

If this sounds like something you'd like to try, you can find it here.

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Toolbar v2 for Firefox fans

Posted by Justin Voskuhl, Software Engineer

Here in the Kirkland, we've had one of the rainiest winters in a long time, giving me extra time to work on the latest release of the Google Toolbar for Firefox. Today, we're happy to release the beta version of Google Toolbar 2 for Firefox. If you were wondering what we were doing with that extra time indoors, Toolbar for Firefox is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux -- and in 16 languages.

This new release includes feed integration with the Google Personalized Homepage and a number of other feed readers. We've made searching better by including previous queries, spelling corrections, and suggestions for popular choices. Gmail fans might appreciate having the mailto: links in Firefox open a compose window in Gmail -– no more copying and pasting email addresses. And to combat the ever-increasing threat of phishing, we've integrated the Safe Browsing extension into Toolbar to alert you when a page is trying to steal sensitive information. Check out everything in the new Toolbar here.

As a dedicated Firefox user, I think that the latest version enhances an already innovative browser. Meanwhile, you IE Toolbar 4 fans may notice that the feature sets aren't identical. That's because Firefox and IE users have different needs. Rest assured that we're working to get the most popular features in both versions.

Here's my new customized Firefox Toolbar, showing my Google Personalized Homepage (built from feeds I discovered using the feed feature). It also gives me history, popular queries, and query corrections in my search box, which I moved to the upper right with the new custom layout.

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More feeds for speed

Posted by Adam Sah, Software Engineer

The personalized homepage has a new directory with more content and more ways to browse, search and add it to your Google homepage. A lot of content owners have been asking for ways to drive adoption of their feeds and modules. One option is the "Add to Google" button you can add to your website as a way to quickly connect fans to your content. Enjoy all the new stuff and as always, feel free to discuss.

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Forget me not

Posted by Avni Shah, Product Manager

In recent years, my window shopping has moved to the web, and Froogle has been there to help me shop smarter. But one thing Froogle couldn't fix was my lack of a short term memory. That's one reason we recently integrated Froogle with Personalized Search. Now you can view and manage your history of Froogle searches and the products you've looked at, just as you already can do with Web Search, Image Search, and News.

Just sign up for Personalized Search and make sure you're signed in to your Google Account when searching on Froogle. If you're like me, that means you'll never have to worry about forgetting Darth Tater's name - ever again.

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And now, News

Posted by Krishna Bharat, Creator, Google News

We're taking Google News out of beta! When we launched the English-language edition in September 2002, we entered untested waters with a grand experiment in news browsing - using computers to organize the world's news in real time and providing a bird's eye view of what's being reported on virtually any topic. By presenting news "clusters" (related articles in a group), we thought it would encourage readers to get a broader perspective by digging deeper into the news -- reading ten articles instead of one, perhaps -- and then gain a better understanding of the issues, which could ultimately benefit society. A bit more than three years later, we offer 22 regional editions in 10 languages, and have a better sense of how people use Google News.

We've certainly gotten a lot of feedback from both readers and editors. For example, readers told us they loved the news clusters but they didn't want press releases on the home page (although they are still useful to have in the search results). A major area we wanted to address was personalization. We offered email alerts, as well as the ability for users to create a personalized page, but many users don't have the time to specify exactly what they want. So today we're adding a way to automatically recommend stories for users with Personalized Search.

Here's how it works: You can sign up for Personalized Search to view and manage your history of news searches and the articles you've read. When you're signed in to your Google Account, you'll receive recommended news stories based on the previous stories you've read. These recommendations will be highlighted just below the top news stories on the page, in a clearly marked section. You can also get a full page of recommended stories by clicking on the section. All of this is done automatically using algorithms. For example, we might recommend news stories to you that many other users have read, especially when you and they have read similar stories in the past. We've also added a section to show you the most popular stories in the Google News edition you are viewing (e.g., U.S.). Now you can see the top stories being published by editors across the web, as well as other stories popular with readers, plus topics that you track or are interested in -- all on one page.

Google News has matured a great deal, and we're proud to see it graduate from its beta status. Much remains to be done, and as always, we have many exciting ideas that we intend to take forward. Meanwhile, as the saying goes, if you don't like the news, go out and make some of your own. Or just keep reading Google News.

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Your Google homepage, to go

Posted by Abhijit Kalamkar, Software Engineer

Anyone who's ever tried to browse the web on their cell phone knows that it isn't always the best user experience. That's why I'm excited to tell you about Google Mobile Personalized Home. We've designed a way for you to view the things that you really care about, from your Gmail inbox to news headlines, weather, stock quotes, and feeds (Atom or RSS). The interface is optimized for small screens, and we've arranged things so you don't have to click on a bunch of links to locate what you're after -– your personalized content appears on top, right where it should be. Give it a try, and let us know how you like it.

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Setting trends

Posted by Yu Chen, Software Engineer

As part of the personalization team, I'm pretty addicted to looking at my search history for interesting patterns. So I decided to go a step further and write a script to pull together some stats about how I was searching. We thought other people might like to see this sort of thing too, so today we launched a Trends feature that gives you a look at a list of your top searches and clicks and other info about your search activity.

To use it, you have to turn on Personalized Search and be signed in to your Google Account while you search. (If you don't have a Google Account, it's easy to create one for free.) Just click the "Trends" link on your Search History page, or go directly to your Trends.

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Build your own Google homepage

Posted by Adam Sah, Software Engineer

The personalized homepage was created to bring together the stuff that interests you from across the web. From an engineering perspective, this became an opportunity to create a framework for all types of content and information. Supporting RSS and Atom feeds was one step in that direction, and today we're excited to start supporting richer web apps as well. With the Google Homepage API, developers can now create modules for the personalized homepage. It's designed to be flexible and easy to use, and you don't need to download anything to create a module. To get the ball rolling, the team's created a few modules to add to the directory. So check these out and get started creating your own.

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O, Canada (among others)

Posted by Dylan Parker, Software Engineer

I've been working on the personalized homepage from Victoria, B.C., and I've never been psyched to have to sign in to the U.S. version every morning. While Seattle's pretty close, I'd prefer to have the actual weather for Victoria -- and have it in Celsius. Now I can, because today we expanded the personalized homepage to 16 new regions: Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, UK, and ahem, Canada.

Now I can enjoy my morning Timbits with a Google homepage -- Canadian-style.

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Feed the world

Posted by Chris Wetherell, Software Engineer, Google Reader

So we've added a new experiment to Google Labs: Google Reader, a service we hope helps you spend more time reading what's important to you (or is, if you'd prefer, nicely diverting). The Reader team is excited to begin iterating in public, and now that Jason Shellen's announced it at Web 2.0 we're excited to get your feedback on this early-stage effort.

We often get asked how anyone's supposed to keep up with the firehose of stuff launched from the web's spigot, so we're offering Reader as a way to help. Like the Personalized Homepage, it's a part of Google's ongoing effort to bring together personalized web content to make information more relevant to users.

And, because I rarely get a forum like this, I'd personally like to thank Google for being able to participate in building Reader with the sorts of accomplished engineers who help keep these web bits pretty interesting. (Waves to Search, Gmail, Maps, Print, News, Suggest, etc.) Thankfully, we're not alone -- everyone involved from corporate entities to thousands of independent developers seem to be focused on lowering the barrier to entry for actually making feeds useful.

For a quick intro to Reader, take the tour, or just get started. I'd make recommendations from my starred items, but a quick scan reveals "still waters running deep" isn't me - I keep my item pool filled with snark (Gawker) or techno-fetishism (Engadget, I'm looking at you).

So go to Google Labs and give it a try. If you're interested in making Reader better, please let us know, as we plan on keeping the experiment alive and kicking as long as there is stuff being syndicated.

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Adding a few sprinkles

Posted by Jessica Ewing, Product Manager

We launched our first version of the Google personalized homepage in May. It started as a project on Google Labs in response to numerous requests from people who wanted to add at-a-glance info by the Google search box. Today we're thrilled to "graduate" from Labs and add a Personalized Home link on the Google homepage. Though we realize that many love the vanilla Google, there are those who might want to add a few sprinkles.

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More of what I want

Posted by Sean Knapp, Software Engineer

A lot of you have personalized your Google homepage since we introduced it on Labs in May. Since then we've received a ton of great feedback, based on which we've added some new options, including a section for bookmarks, updated the page's look-and-feel, and introduced a way to find and add feeds from wherever you want (which means I can keep up with the latest John Cougar Mellencamp news).

Give the latest rev a try and let us know what you think.

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