Google has recently introduced "What's Popular," a gadget for user iGoogle startup pages. The gadget displays popular items of interest in the form of links with titles and short descriptions from Google's index on users' iGoogle pages. Similar to Digg, users can interact with the application by voting or participate in polling – but there are significant differences between this application and Digg.

First and foremost, there is no login, username or special account needed to vote, other than already being signed into your iGoogle account. Similar to Digg, you can submit URLs for inclusion in the gadget without any other significant information - meaning you can submit anonymously. This eliminates the worry of being penalized for submitting your own content. If you decide to submit using your Google ID and want to be recognized, you can edit the title and description of the submission.  

Unlike Digg, there presently is no area for commentary or the capacity to make friends. On the surface, it could be argued that this gadget has the potential to be a much more democratic process than a site like Digg, where results are regularly manipulated by networks of "friends"¹.

Not to worry, Google already has a huge user base that can be pointed in the direction of web pages they might enjoy and this should not deter from the application’s overall success.

None-the-less, these types of applications by iGoogle continue to grow and add depth to user interaction to content on the web.

Get it now and try for yourself:

If you are an iGoogle user, you can get the “What’s Popular” gadget here.
If you are not an iGoogle user, a stand-alone URL is available here and a mini gadget URL is available here. 

Sources:

¹Web Magazine May, 2009

Google Rolls Out Digg Reminiscent iGoogle Gadget: What's Popular -  By George Norman - Software News Editor

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Denice MacDonald