iGoogle Canvas View Goes Live

October 16, 2008 · Posted in Internet

Google has is officially rolling out the canvas view to all iGoogle users. I’ve been anticipating the official release, as I’ve already updated a few of my iGoogle gadgets to implement the new view. The new view allows a single gadget to take up the majority of the space on the iGoogle page.

The canvas view is a welcome new feature for gadget developers such as myself, as it finally presents us with an opportunity to monetize our gadgets. I’m hoping to at least make a few extra bucks with my popular gadgets, as they have over 100k views a day. I probably need to start looking for a good method for displaying ads on the canvas view. I’ve been considering using OpenX, but I haven’t set anything up yet. The biggest for me is finding a way to display contextual ads. I would somehow need to display ads that are relevant to the queries users make when looking up terms in my Web Definitions and Thesaurus gadgets. If I come up with a solution, I will be sure to share it.