iGoogle

iGoogle made the browser homepage a tiny dashboard of weather, games, feeds, calendars, and gadgets.

A homepage could act as a personal control panel. Arranging gadgets and feeds meant choosing what to see at the beginning of a browsing session: useful information, a small distraction, or updates from favored sources. The layout itself became familiar through repetition.

Its appeal was different from a single-purpose app. Several modest tools shared one place, and the user decided how they sat together. The retirement of iGoogle ended that particular assembled homepage even though its individual functions remained available in many other forms.

Google retired the personalized homepage as its products shifted toward mobile apps.