iGoogle gets gadgets

CNet News Webware:

Google’s personalized homepage, iGoogle, is getting an update today. Widgets on the page can support a new “canvas view,” which expands the widget to the full iGoogle window. The sixteen new or updated widgets that Google is promoting today support this feature. There are over 40,000 iGoogle widgets available, iGoogle group product manager Jessica Ewing told me.

40,000??? That’s a lot of widgets…

The Official Google Blog:

Not all of our gadgets have canvas views yet, but here are some of the best:

• News – New gadgets from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post give me full-page views of what’s new in the world. Nice.
• Games – The Sudoku gadget lets me play thousands of full-page Sudoku puzzles without squinting at 6-point type. The GoComics gadget gives me my fix of Garfield and Doonesbury and lets me choose from all of their other comics. I’ve also spent many coffee breaks browsing through videos from YouTube and CurrentTV.
• Entertainment - I’ve configured the TV Guide gadget to my zip code and just used it today to figure out when the newest episode of The Office is playing. Flixster’s movies gadget lets me access trailers, ratings, and theater information for any movie. I also use the iLike gadget to browse news, concerts, and free MP3s from my favorite musicians.
• Google stuff - The new Gmail gadget lets me read my full email and perform simple actions like send or reply to emails without leaving iGoogle. Last but not least, a gadget that I authored and use every day is for Google Finance, which provides full-screen finance charts and news of the stocks in my portfolio.

Here’s a full list of our highlighted canvas view gadgets.