Yesterday, search giant Google made a little update to its personalized homepage system.  Previously called 'Google Personalized Homepage"  it has been rebranded as "iGoogle", a name slightly sexier than the old one.  The name change comes with one technical improvement, the ability for end-users to make basic iGoogle page gadgets that they can then share with their friends.  The wizards currently are limited to things like to-do lists, photo boxes, a gadget to include your favorite YouTube video of the day, or a twitter-like "what am I up to?" box.  While there's nothing too exciting yet, it marks an interesting step forward for the personalized homepage system, especially the ability to share your gadgets with anyone on your gmail contact list.  It has a faint scent of a social networking site in the making.

As a bit of additional trivia, for a while now, the URL for the Google Personalized Homepage was www.google.com/ig, seems the name "iGoogle" has been planned for quite a while now. Also, don't expect Apple to throw a fit over the name.  Google CEO Eric Schmidt serves on the Apple Board of Directors.