Functionality is what it’s all about. With iGoogle gadgets, you can have email, jokes, weather, Bible verses, movie review, and even games right on your iGoogle desktop. There are hundreds of gadgets available, allowing you to do just about anything with your iGoogle page.
Adding Gadgets
Gadgets or widgets are small programs that can be inserted into a web page in order to bring specific functions to that page.
For example, you can use a gadget to bring your gmail account, google docs account, or even the latest weather right to your iGoogle page. There are hundreds of widgets available, allowing you to do just about anything with your iGoogle page.
To Find and Add iGoogle Gadgets
1. Log into your iGoogle account
2. Click on Add Stuff, in the lower right corner of the theme bar.
3. There are 2 tabs at the top of the page, Gadgets, and Themes. Ensure Gadgets is selected.
4. In the far left column, you will see a list of sort options, and widget categories. You can search by category, or simply browse through all available widgets.
5. When you find a gadget you’re interested in, click on the title of that widget to learn more about it.
6. Click Add it now, to add the gadget to your iGoogle page.
Sometimes, you’ll want to add a gadget/widget or an RSS feed that isn’t in the iGoogle gadget list. iGoogle makes this simple.
Google Music, with more 13 million songs, will be integrated with Android Market, the company's online store for smartphone apps and videos as it plays catch-up with its rivals. Apple, Amazon and Facebook have to varying degrees integrated music into their core online and mobile products.
Google Music will allow the Web search leader to do the same by letting consumers access music from various Internet-connected devices and easily share tracks with friends.
But analysts said the lack of soundtracks from Warner Music - a major label whose artists include Led Zeppelin and Prince, among others - will limit the appeal of Google Music.
"They've got to get that catalog filled pretty quickly," said Mike McGuire, an analyst at industry research firm Gartner. "It's a launch, but it's kind of like a work-in-progress."
Google Music was unveiled at a splashy event at the Mr. Brainwash Studios in Hollywood, California on Wednesday.
Google has negotiated U.S. deals with three of the four major music companies: Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group; Sony Corp's Sony Music Entertainment; and EMI. It has also signed deals with the increasingly influential independent label group Merlin and London-based Beggar's Banquet label group, home to the year's biggest selling artist, Adele.
Analysts say selling online music is unlikely to provide much of a lift to Google's revenue. But they say Google needs to be in the market to ensure that its Android-based mobile efforts can match offerings from competitors.
Android is the world's No. 1 smartphone operating system, powering about 200 million devices worldwide. But without a music service, Android-based smartphones and tablets may not be as attractive to consumers seeking a product that offers a seamless media experience.
And with music storage increasingly moving to remote Internet servers in "the cloud" rather than on the device itself, companies like Google and Apple have a way to keep users locked in to their respective mobile services, said BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis.
"Everyone is using music and media as a jail. Ultimately, this stuff is going to be stored in the cloud and it becomes harder and harder to switch systems," he said.
To help jump-start the new music store, Google said it will offer one free song for consumers to download every day.
Google will also allow consumers to share purchased songs with friends on the Google+ social network. The feature will give users of Google+ a "free, full-play" of songs purchased by their friends.
"Recommendations from friends are the single most important way that people discover music and we think that this feature has the potential to really transform purchasing behavior," said Zahavah Levine, Google's director of content partnerships for Android, at Wednesday's event.
Music executives said that even though sales have struggled in recent years, music usage has never been more popular on different types of formats like social networks and mobile devices.
Facebook, the world's largest social network, unveiled a tab in September through which music services like Spotify, Rdio and MOG enable Facebook users to share music. Amazon has also long been a major music retailer and has a music locker service
Earlier this year, Google unveiled the Google Music beta, which allowed users to upload their music to Google servers, and access the music from multiple devices.
Shares of Google, which finished Wednesday's regular session at $611.47, were up 72 cents in after-hours trading. 
Sony Corp's Sony Music Entertainment, Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group and EMI Music are expected to have deals with Google in place in time for a Wednesday afternoon announcement in Los Angeles, the Journal reported.
The Google Music store will compete with Apple Inc's dominant iTunes and other digital music services.
Google's store will sell songs for around $1 apiece, the Journal reported. The store also is expected to allow users who buy songs to share one or two free listens with contacts on the Google+ social networking service, the newspaper reported.
A Wednesday evening event tied to the announcement will feature pop group Maroon 5 and R&B singer Drake, among others.
Representatives for Google, Sony and Universal Music Group did not immediately respond to requests for comment. An EMI spokesman declined to comment.
Intended to combat the trade in pirated movies and music, the two bills would give copyright holders and law enforcement officials added powers to cut off websites and require search engines, payment collectors and others to block access.
"The solutions are draconian," Schmidt said during an appearance at the MIT Sloan School of Management. "There's a bill that would require (Internet service providers) to remove URLs from the Web, which is also known as censorship last time I checked."
Schmidt said content owners like Hollywood studios have a legitimate problem, since increasing trading of pirated movies threatens their revenue.
"Their business models are threatened by theft," Schmidt said. "We don't endorse it. Please don't do it. If you're doing it, stop. I hope that's very clear."
The legislation Schmidt opposed is called the PROTECT IP Act in the U.S. Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Instead, Schmidt recommended regulations based on tracing payments spent at websites offering illegal materials.
The remarks followed a letter to lawmakers opposing the bills from a group of Internet companies including Google, AOL Inc, eBay Inc, Facebook, Yahoo Inc and Twitter.
"We are concerned that these measures pose a serious risk to our industry's continued track record of innovation and job creation, as well as to our nation's cybersecurity," the companies wrote. 
