Synopsis
The personalized homepage is an online information dashboard, aggregating data from across the web into a personal data portal. Sources of information have become so vast homepages are now being divided into tabs, a quick way to group data by topic or mood. The old portal homepage of celebrity gossip, buying guides, and stock reports is being replaced with custom configurations of efficiency (or distractions).
Our three speakers will make you rethink the popular web portal and how to integrate your content with your users' information hub.
Live.com sits at the center of Microsoft's Windows Live initiative, connecting users to services such as search and news combined with user customizations. The most popular Live.com gadgets include new releases and popular tracks from the iTunes Music Store, popular videos from MSN Video and Soapbox, and recent e-mail from Windows Live Mail.
Google Personalized Homepage remixes the simplistic Google start page into a dashboard of information. The service combines default modules promoting Google services with popular data from around the web. Popular Google gadgets include personal information tools Gmail and Google Calendar as well as entertaining distractions such as Comedy Central's joke of the day and PacMan.
Netvibes is an independent personal homepage provider integrating popular best-of-breed service modules from across the web. Netvibes users frequently add web feeds and rich media modules to their homepage, creating a mix of visual data and scannable text. Popular Netvibes modules include Sudoku, cartoons, and Google Maps.
