Search engine, Google, has launched new gadgets designed to leverage Opensocial to all iGoogle users in the U.S., including ways to share content, play games and collaborate on the iGoogle page.
A few examples of the new social gadgets include:

• Content Sharing – NPR enables users to browse through latest headlines across a variety of categories and share the stories that interest them with friends. With the Flixster gadget, users can rate and review movies or browse what films their friends have reviewed or found interesting. Users can now also view their friend’s favorites comics stories or post comments with the GoComics gadget.
• Games and Fun – The Scrabble and Chess gadgets enable users to play two of their favorite games with their friends or the public at large. Users can also see which of their friends has the biggest brain or immerse themselves in a New York Times Crossword where they can complete a given week’s puzzle with the help of their friends.
• Communication/tools – Users can share multiple lists with friends with the social To-do gadget. It’s easy to add and remove items, mark items done, change priorities and edit item descriptions with friends or family. The Social Photos gadget enables users to upload and share their albums from Flickr and Picasa, as well as browse their friend’s albums or top Photos.

As part of the launch, Google also introduced two new features on iGoogle called a Friends group and Updates. A Friends group is a list of friends users can create based on a subset of users’ Google Contacts to be able to interact and share social gadgets with. Updates allows users to see what their friends are up to by sharing gadgets, photos, ratings and more from the social gadgets on their iGoogle page. The new social features are completely optional and can be disabled on any social gadget if users do not want to take advantage of the new features. In addition, not all gadgets on iGoogle are social-enabled and those which are will be marked with a special icon.
iGoogle’s mission is to quickly connect users to the information that is most useful and important to them in an easy-to-use and customizable format. This is just the beginning and Google will continue to offer users more choices that enable them to create a powerful and personalized homepage. For developers and content owners, social gadgets allow more possibilities for building rich and compelling gadgets. In addition, not only can developers take advantage of iGoogle’s growing audience of users to promote their gadgets and drive additional awareness and traffic back to their websites, but they can also earn revenue from their gadgets on iGoogle by placing ads in the canvas view mode of their gadgets.
iGoogle, Google’s personalized homepage, lets users customize their internet experience, choosing the content they’re interested in seeing. Users can access weather forecasts, movie times, play games, or read the latest news, all directly from their homepage.
With the largest index of websites available on the World Wide Web and the industry’s most advanced search technology, Google Inc. delivers the fastest and easiest way to find relevant information on the Internet. Google’s technological innovations have earned the company numerous industry awards and citations, including two Webby Awards; two WIRED magazine Readers Raves Awards; Best Internet Innovation and Technical Excellence Award from PC Magazine; Best Search Engine on the Internet from Yahoo! Internet Life; Top Ten Best Cybertech from TIME magazine; and Editor’s Pick from CNET. A growing number of companies worldwide, including Yahoo! and its international properties, Sony Corporation and its global affiliates, AOL/Netscape, and Cisco Systems, rely on Google to power search on their websites. A privately held company based in Mountain View, Calif., Google’s investors include Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers and Sequoia Capital.