In a meeting with our Google team this week, one of our contacts introduced us to iGoogle. Although I was aware of it, I never really went as far as to try it out. However, out of curiosity today, I went to check it out quickly, and before I knew it 15 minutes went by with me playing around with my page, as well as some of the 'gadgets' I can add to it.

iGoogle allows you to personalize your Google homepage, spicing it up from just the plain white background. It allows you to customize your page with news, local weather, YouTube clips, and lets you 'add stuff'; gadgets that you may want to interact with when visiting the page. Our rep let us know one of his favorite gadgets was Pacman - and much to my surprise, you can play Frogger and Duck Hunt too!

Much to my surprise, some of these gadgets are being used as ad units - which Google is currently calling 'gadget ads'. These gadgets are being described as 'websites within websites'; users can post and share gadgets anywhere, engaging users around your brand. Gadget ads are comprised of 'applications incorporating data feeds, maps, images, audio, video, flash, HTML, or JavaScript in a single creative'.

Now that I've actually seen these gadgets and interacted with some of them myself, I'm curious to see how they work in an ad campaign!

Labels: gadget ads, google, igoogle, search engine marketing