Google is becoming quite the powerhouse with all the services (most of which are free) they offer. They are going head-to-head with Microsoft Office, all smartphone platforms, Mapquest, etc., etc. You name it, they are probably working on it or buying it.

I recently opened a gmail account for personal email and such, so I set up iGoogle as my home page. iGoogle lets you customize content just like many of the others out there. I recently set up Google Readeron my iGoogle page to read blogs and news feeds right on my home page. On the iGoogle page, it provides a scrolling list of the most recent posts from all of your subscriptions. So, you can get quick headlines of everything and open the ones that interest you, or you can click through to the Google Reader page which lets you organize and view data in several different formats.

The user interface is very easy to use and adding new subscriptions is easy. There is a feature to work offline as well for those who might be using a laptop. You can share posts with others using the system, email posts, etc. It offers quite a robust set of tools, but what I like most is that I can get all the same feeds just by logging in from any computer.

If you use gmail or iGoogle, give the reader and try and set up your favorite ActiveRain blogs.