IGoogle Home Page Is Closing – Which Google Program Will Be Next?

Next month, Google will shut down the popular iGoogle home page on November 1, and many Google users are unhappy. Like Google Reader users before them, they can cry all they want. Google does the same thing that Google does.

The iGoogle program has been around since 2005 and allows you to bookmark all your favorite gadgets, read news headlines, and play games right on your own personalized home page. Many users just loved this program and will hate to see it work.

As a user of many free Google products, I am also very scared at times. Google has shut down some of its popular programs and leaves one wondering what will happen next. My main concern: will Google+ go the way of Google Buzz? Will Google remove Google+ and Google Hangouts?

As someone who is using and building their subscriber contact list … losing Google+ would be a huge blow to me. Also, while I like and use Facebook for family connections, Google+ has become my online marketing or business hangout, I just don’t want to miss it. No matter how much Google Search has criticized of late, they do something right and Google+ is one of them in my opinion.

While many have described it primarily as a ghost town and the number of users has not exactly been devastating, Google+ continues to play a significant role in Google’s SERPs and markup. After all the programs Google has shut down, it’s reasonable to think that if Google+ costs too much to run or usage is significantly reduced, Google may shut it down. Judging solely from past closings, it wouldn’t be a great leap of faith to believe that it is indeed possible.

For me, another big concern is Google Analytics, will Google shut it down? While not totally accurate, the data is a bit off, I can’t imagine my day of marketing without real-time analytics running in the background. It gives me a lot of information about how my actual visitors behave on my pages and websites. While you’re probably giving Google invaluable site and search data, Analytics must be a very expensive program to run, even for Google and its vast resources. I just hope it’s the last free Google program to close its doors.

Another is Webmaster Tools, losing this program would be a huge loss too, especially if you use it to keep your site or sites in line with Google’s myriad rules and guidelines. While it hasn’t been very helpful to me, I still check to see if something isn’t fully in sync with Google’s rules. Webmaster Tools are an integral part of all Google setup; You can’t imagine it going the same way as other minor programs, like the Google Affiliate Network.

Perhaps, besides AdSense and AdWords, the only other Google programs, which I would be a bit disappointed to see disappear, are gMail, Google Earth and Google Chrome. Every now and then I use all of these and would hate to see them disappear, especially Chrome, which I have installed on several of my computers. However, for privacy reasons, I have been using them less and less so I was able to survive their closures without too much withdrawal pains.

Actually, if you are concerned about your own privacy online, it is probably best that you stay away from Google and any free Google programs. It goes without saying that, for advertising purposes, Google collects every data, every keystroke, and every topic that you have shown the slightest interest in following. While all of this information is purportedly “collectively collected and processed” according to Google’s perspective, please use your own discretion if online privacy is at the top of your priority list. In fact, Google has become the largest list builder and consumer data collector on the web and in the world. This collected user data has become Google’s most valuable asset, one that can be leveraged for years to come.

It is simply the price that we have to pay to use these programs, after all, you did not think that these products were really free, did you? On the other hand, is there anything in life really free?

Google products and programs are no exception, although I don’t want to be too cynical, but be realistic about Google’s ultimate goals and objectives here. It is a publicly traded company and income generation is its lifeblood – the more you do, the happier everyone will be. There is nothing wrong with that, nor is there anything wrong with Google giving us all these myriad free products and programs, as long as we realize the price we are paying for those products.

For my part, I’m more than willing to pay that price, and I really hope iGoogle is the last of Google’s products on the chopping block. At least for the immediate future, but I’m not holding my breath.