Google Releases API for Personalized Homepage

It’s not clear why it took so long, but Google has now released an API allowing developers the opportunity to create Google Personalized Homepage plug-ins, much like Microsoft is doing with Live. There’s even a directory of new plug-ins, but so far there are only a few that have apparently been created by Google employees.

As Michael Arrington is so fond of pointing out over at Techcrunch, the business model for personalized homepages is suspect at best, so the number of people that are working on personalized homepages is sort of perplexing. That being said, I do use Google’s personalized homepage, mostly because it gives me two simple things: a Google search form (which, now that I think about it I never use, since I simply use the one built into Firefox) and the ability to see RSS feeds from my local news radio station. Hmm. Maybe I’ll have to rethink my homepage. Anyhow, it’s nice to see Google coming to the table with an offering for developers. I hope this inspires someone to produce homepage objects that are more compelling than the standard Google objects / Microsoft gadgets / Yahoo! widgets that are available so far.

[via tipster Kesey]
 

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